


Damned From Here To Eternity

by ariadnesmaze



Series: The Eternity Stone [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aether, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Avengers Tower, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Bisexual Steve Rogers, Blood, Bonding, Brainwashed Bucky Barnes, Brainwashed Loki (Marvel), Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Consent, Consent is Sexy, Dark, Demisexual Bucky Barnes, Depression, Dirty Thoughts, Domestic Avengers, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Drama, Fluff and Smut, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Loki (TV Show), Loki smut, Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mind Stone, Pansexual OFC, Power Stone (Marvel), Rating May Change, Reality Stone (Marvel), Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Skrull(s), Slow Burn, Smut, Soul Bond, Soul Stone (Marvel), Space Stone, TVA, Tags May Change, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV) Trailers, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: The Dark World, Time Stone, Time Travel, Time Variance, Torture, Violence, loki romance, sexual consent, wandavision - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnesmaze/pseuds/ariadnesmaze
Summary: A sorceress from another dimension who is hell bent on returning to her own world to save her people.A brainwashed god of mischief who will get his revenge against Thanos no matter what it takes.When Kai, a powerful being from another universe, falls through a portal into another world so different than her own, she brings a powerful weapon with her that is powerful enough to rival the Infinity stones - The Eternity Stone. The only problem? It’s been destroyed and the pieces lay scattered across time and space. Kai is desperate to reassemble the Eternity Stone and get back to her own dimension before its too late.When Loki leads an army to New York and Kai discovers that he can sense the shards and help her track them down, she’s determined to use him to find the shards - no matter the cost. And when Loki realizes she has a powerful weapon, he is determined to steal it and use it to destroy Thanos and take over Asgard and establish himself as the rightful king of the nine realms.*EXPLICIT VERSION. PG-13 version can be found as part 2 and 3 of the Eternity Stone*
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Loki (Marvel)/Original Character(s), Loki (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s), Tom Hiddleston/Loki/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Eternity Stone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1309541
Kudos: 9





	1. Taking Out The Trash

The desert was undulating from the heat as the sun beat down on it. In the distance, through a glimmering haze, Las Vegas’ strip glistened. 

Kai climbed from her car, slamming the door hard, the sound swallowed up by the desert surrounding her, everything sounded muffled out here. 

Ricardo, a detective in the 72nd precinct had been complaining all day about this seemingly impossible crime and she was determined to solve it - if only so he would stop whining. 

The yellow crime scene tape was staked out around the scene of the crime and she ducked under it, moving farther into the desert. 

Several people who had gone hiking had vanished without a trace. But that wasn’t the mystery. 

The mystery was that they found them again. 

Or, they found their skeletons. Picked clean and shining as if they had been decomposing for decades. 

No one knew what could decay bodies so quickly. There wasn’t an acid that could do it without destroying or leaving some type of mark on the bones. There wasn’t an animal who could clean a body so quickly and leave no prints or trace behind. 

The precinct was stumped. 

But Kai had a sneaking suspicion she might know what was doing it. 

Her feet sank into the sand as she walked and the sand blew across her face and exposed arms. It flew around her, swirling around the entire scene. She slid on a pair of sunglasses, trying to keep it out of her eyes. 

Her foot crunched on something hard and she looked down. 

Well, she’d found another body. 

Her foot had snapped a femur in half.

She crouched down, the world around her having gone eerily silent, the mini sand storm dying around her. 

Kai brushed away the sand from around the bone, finding more of the skeleton half buried in sand. 

The sunlight darkened and Kai froze as the wind picked up again and sand flew around her, moving in one direction. 

Up. 

Kai didn’t dare look up and flicked her eyes around her, studying the shadow that had blotted out the Vegas sunlight. It wasn’t very big, only about ten feet wide but it was getting closer. 

And fast. 

Kai shot her gaze upwards just as a wall of sand slammed into her and tore her body to pieces. 

“SHIT!” Kai sat up in her car, watching as the sand storm tore apart her illusion. She could easily imagine the kind of affect it would have on a human body. 

The sand settled back down on the ground, and the wind died. 

Kai sighed, reaching into her backseat and rifling through the weapons there. “How the hell am I gonna explain this one to Ricardo?” She pulled a bow and a single arrow from a quiver full of them. “Oh yes, the sand is literally stripping muscle off of bones,” she said in a high nasally voice. She clicked a button and the sunroof began to open. “Have fun writing that report!” 

Kai stood up between her seats, already nocking the single arrow she had chosen. The moment she popped out of the car, she fired it before ducking back inside, clicking the button to close the sunroof. 

The arrow whistled through the air and landed dead center in the middle of the crime scene. The sand swirled around it and began to gather again. 

Kai clicked a button on the bow and the arrow exploded in a ball of fire. 

The sand collapsed back to the ground and Kai squinted at it, wondering if it was safe now. 

She took a deep breath and focused, building another illusion of herself and sent it out of the car, moving towards the sand. 

The sand opened up and swallowed her illusion whole before it gathered in a huge cloud and shot for the car. 

Kai threw the car into reverse, her tiles fighting for grip on the sand as she peeled backwards, the sand cloud gaining on her. 

Her phone rang and she flinched in shock before clicking a button on her steering wheel, answering the phone as her car skidded backwards in the sand.  
“Hello?” She asked, trying to sound as normal as possible as the sand began to surrounded her. 

“Please tell me you didn’t have something to do with that explosion out by the crime scene.” Ricardo’s voice filled the car and she turned down the volume on the speakers that had been blasting music on the drive over. 

“Uh,” Kai’s car shuddered as the car began to sink into the ground, “okay, I won’t tell you.” 

“Damn it Kai!” Ricardo exclaimed, “how many times do I have to tell you that you can’t just go walking onto any crime scene you want?” 

The car was sinking rapidly and Kai climbed up onto her seat, as the windows were blocked out by sand. 

Sand began to fill the car, flying in through the AC vent and swirling around her. Kai tucked her shirt up over her nose, trying to keep it out of her lungs as she picked up several of her weapons, slinging them on. “Yeah, yeah, can I call you back? I’m a little busy!” 

“Yeah well so am I! Do you know how much paperwork I’m doing after your little stunt at the Bellagio?” 

“For the record, you were the one who wanted to know if Oceans 11 was realistic!” The entire car was flooding with sand and it had sunk completely underneath the ground. 

Everything went quiet and Kai lit a small glowing ball of golden light in her hand. It seemed it had all stopped. She breathed out a sigh of relief. 

The car jerked to the side and she went flying into her window, her head cracking the glass. She wiped the blood out of her eyes, her head throbbing in pain. “Hey Ricardo?” She spoke over his loud ranting in Spanish that she was only half paying attention too. “If you don’t here from me in an hour, give me a call back. K?” 

“Don’t you dare hang up on-.”

Kai clicked the button on the steering wheel, silencing Ricardo. 

With a jolt, the car went soaring into the air, blown upwards on a geyser of sand.

Kai flew upwards and crashed through the sunroof, sending her flying out of the car covered in glass. 

The glass cut into her skin and the sand stung as it swirled around her, trying to rip her apart. 

Sand rushed into her nose and down her throat and into her ears and she choked on it as it ripped at her eyes underneath her lids. 

She tumbled towards the ground through a cloud of sand and she tried to calm down and concentrate. 

The spells around her body shifted, moving just enough to allow huge wings made from golden energy to shoot from her back. She spread them wide, gritting her teeth as the sand ripped at them and banked hard to the right to avoid smashing into the ground. 

She flew upwards, fighting through a storm of sand, pushing past it all and breaking out into fresh air. 

Kai looked down to see the cloud of sand reforming and billowing rapidly up towards her, like a mushroom cloud. The wind was shrieking as the cloud followed her up, stretching thinner and thinner as it reached for her. 

As it shifted, Kai saw exactly what she was looking for, glowing faintly in the middle of the thickest part of the cloud. 

She tucked her wings in and dropped, falling rapidly downwards, creating several illusions of herself to confuse the sandstorm.

It reached out for all four of her doubles and stretched even thinner as it bashed apart one after the other. 

Kai took a deep breath before she plunged right into the heart of the cloud, aiming for the glowing light that was her goal. 

Her hand reached out blindly as the sand tore apart her eyes, she managed to close her hand around the small glowing beacon that had guided her here before she was blinded. 

She yanked on it and the sand around her froze before falling back to the ground. 

Kai wasn’t far behind. 

She plunged into the ground, plowing through the sand and rolling across the ground, the bones in her wings snapping at the joint and her right ankle shattering on impact. 

She rolled to a stop, her eyesight fuzzy and unclear, each blink felt like sandpaper rubbing on her eyelids. 

Her body burned as her healing magic, the Deiltre she had been born with began to work to fix her broken bones. She clenched her teeth as the bones in her body snapped back into place, making her shriek in pain. Her wings shifted back into place, making her see red but she couldn’t glamour them until they were fixed. 

Her eyesight was slowly coming back with each blink as she cried out the sand. She sneezed heavily, rubbing her nose and looking at the sand coming out in her snot. “This sucks,” she groaned and coughed up more sand. 

Eventually, she was able to see straight again and her pain faded to a dull ache as her Deiltre continued to work on her body. She slowly sat up, her back still screaming in pain but it wasn’t agonizing any longer. 

Kai slowly opened her clenched fist, half expecting the article she had spent weeks hunting to be lost in the sand. 

But in her sand caked hand, the tiny sliver of stone glowed pink up at her. 

It was as thin as glass and was as sharp as well. It was small, no bigger than her pinky nail but it was better than nothing. 

Sirens filled the air and Kai closed her hand around the pink shard, putting it into the pocket of her jeans and turning as Ricardo and Samuel came skidding up in a cop car. 

She quickly rebuilt her glamour, hissing in pain as her wings vanished. She lifted a hand, sand falling off of her as she waved to them. “Hey guys!” 

Ricardo and Samuel stumbled in the sand as they climbed from their car and came towards her. “WHAT THE FUCK KAI!” He tripped over a bone that had been uncovered by the sandstorm. 

Kai slowly got to her feet, using a cactus as a brace and picked out the needles quickly. She tested her ankle and it throbbed painfully but she could walk. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

“Stop messing around,” Ricardo was pissed, his face bright red, like he had a bad sunburn. “What happened?”

Kai shrugged, “sandstorm. It blew away all the evidence.” 

Samuel narrowed his eyes, “and the explosion?” 

Kai shrugged, “who knows.” She turned her gaze to her half destroyed car and sighed, “any chance you could give me a ride back to the city?” 

Ricardo ran a hand through his hair, “I’m half tempted to leave you out here.” 

“Then who is going to bring you free dumplings on bad days?” Kai smirked at him. She walked towards her half buried car, “I have some things in the back seat that I need though.” She stepped onto the hood and lowered herself down through the shattered sunroof, the glass cutting into her skin but she quickly picked it out, watching as her skin knit back together. She turned her gaze on all of her weapons which had fallen all around the car and closed her eyes for a second, concentrating. 

Samuel and Ricardo’s minds were easy to find in the empty desert and even easier to slip inside since she already had a mental string connecting her mind to their minds through her Psychomenti powers. Along with every cop in the 72nd precinct. 

She slipped into their minds and as she handed the weapons out to them, she twisted their eyes to see nothing but golf clubs, baseball bats and skis. Doing this was easier than converting the weapons into something else. 

She climbed from the car once she had passed all of her weapons out and dug her phone out of the sand. She shook out the sand but it was dead. She sighed, it would take a while for her to use her Deiltre to clone another one. 

“Do you coach an entire school's worth of teams?” Samuel asked as they stuffed her weapons into the cop car and she climbed into the back and settled between the deadly weapons that the other two couldn’t see. 

They drove back into Las Vegas, passing through the strip and heading farther out into the suburbs where Ricardo pulled the car outside of her house. “Do you need help bringing all this stuff up?” 

Kai looked around at all the stuff and then waved her hand, making it all vanish. 

“WHOA!” Samuel started to shout but Kai flicked her fingers and pulled on the string between their minds and his face settled back into a board expression. “Have a good day Kai.” 

Ricardo blinked his eyes, his own shocked expression fading, “yeah, see you tomorrow for the normal 9-5.” 

Kai smiled at them, climbing from the car. Human minds were so easy to mess with. 

Ricardo and Samuel drove off and Kai watched them go as the sun began to set, the shadows growing longer and longer. She stepped up to a shadow and her body dissolved into it, leaving the street empty. 

The world Kai moved through was dark and cold but after the heat and sun of the desert she welcomed it. 

Her clothes snagged on hidden fingers, trying to pull her off her path but she kept a clear image in her mind of her goal. 

Only seconds later, she appeared in front of a log cabin in the woods. It was fully dark here and the cicadas were buzzing in the trees. 

Kai walked carefully across the ground, moving silently through the forest. 

She felt it when she passed through her magical barrier, runes glowed on the trees around her but let her pass into her hideout. 

Kai walked into the log cabin and headed for the basement, ignoring the house that was covered in dust and decay except for the places where her footprints led to the basement door. 

Kai swung it open and walked down the stairs, more spells glowing as she passed but not triggering. Anyone who wasn’t given her permission to enter would be trapped and tortured until she could get there to kill them herself. 

The only two people she had ever let in here were dead now. 

She pushed away the thoughts of some of her first friends that she had met when she had landed in this world over seventy years ago and reached the huge metal door at the bottom of the stairs. She typed in a code and carefully swung it open. 

A pink light glowed from within and she stepped into her vault. 

In the center of the room glowed a half assembled pink stone about as big as an ostrich egg - The Eternity Stone.

The center of it had been carefully assembled but farther out, pieces of the stone floated around, missing the pieces that connected them to the rest of the stone. 

Kai pulled the small piece of the stone from her pocket and the entire stone glowed brighter as she held up the shard towards the stone. 

It flew into place, clicking together with two other shards floating in the air. The stone shone brighter for a split second before settling back down to the dim light it had been giving off before. 

Kai sighed, staring at the small piece she had added to it. 

Seventy years of searching. 

Seventy years of trying to get back home to the world she had fallen from. 

Seventy years of being the only one of her kind. 

One hundred and fifteen shards down, who knew how many more left she’d have to find.

And then she could leave this world - this reality - behind and go home. 

____________________________________

Kai left the Eternity Stone and shadow travelled back to her house. She landed on her driveway and narrowed her eyes at the black car parked in it. 

She turned to her front door where a man in a suit was leaning against the adobe wall. “I heard about the explosion,” he said instead of a ‘hello.’ “And about what you do. Are you a vigilante now?” 

Kai gritted her teeth, wanting nothing more than to vanish him into a pocket dimension but if she did that, she’d have SHIELD at her doorstep before she could blink. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go inside. I have a vicious attack animal.” She moved towards her front door and Coulson stepped aside as she swung it open. She didn’t bother telling him to leave, she had learned the hard way that he was persistent. It was better to let him talk and then send him on his way than avoid him. 

“You used to be more.” Coulson said and Kai rolled her eyes as she flipped on the lights in her living room. “You helped found SHIELD, you helped fight in World War 2, you used to do work that mattered.” 

Kai spun around, her eyes flashing silver for just a second in her anger before they settled back to brown. “It sure as hell matters to the people I save.” 

“You just don’t strike me as the type who would help someone out of the kindness of your heart.” 

Kai laughed emotionlessly, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me Coulson.” She moved towards a side table and picked up fish food to feed the small goldfish in his tank. 

“Is this supposed to be your vicious attack animal?” Coulson asked, studying the goldfish. 

“His name is Bubbles,” Kai deadpanned and Coulson studied her, unable to tell if she was joking. “My patience is running thin Coulson. Need I remind you what I did to the last person who pissed me off?” 

“No thanks, we were cleaning up the body parts for weeks. You have a nice arm, his heart was found over a thousand feet away from where you originally killed him.” 

“Thanks. I workout.” 

Coulson’s eyes fell on the picture on the side table next to Bubbles. “Who are they?” He studied the picture of five people smiling at the camera along with Kai. 

Kai flicked her fingers and the photo vanished. “Last chance to tell me what’s going on Coulson before I send you back to Fury in a box.” 

Coulson turned to her, swallowing. “We found him.” 

Kai froze, “found who?”

Coulson passed her a file and she flipped it open, a half submerged photo of the Valkyrie greeted her. 

She stared at it, pushing back the memories. Steve, the Howling Commandos and she had attacked HYDRA’s main base and Steve had gone after the Red Skull. He hadn’t returned. 

She had spent years trying to find him and the Tesseract. But both of them had been lost to the ocean. 

She flipped over the page and swallowed back the lump in her throat as she saw Steve’s body covered in ice. He was laying down, almost as if he was sleeping. He hadn’t died in the initial crash then. He’d probably drowned or starved to death. 

She cleared her throat, closing the file. She had spent her life surrounded by death and it had taken her years to get over his death. “Thank you for letting me know. Can I- Can I see his body?” She tried to keep her voice from trembling. 

Coulson frowned, “Kai, I don’t think you understand...he’s not dead.” 

Kai’s heart stopped. “What?”

“Somehow the serum kept him alive and the ice put him into some sort of hibernation. He’s alive.” 

“You’re not joking with me? Because if you are....” 

“I’m not joking.” Coulson reassured her, “we want you to be there when he wakes up to explain things. I imagine he’s going to be confused.” 

Kai couldn’t keep all of her tears at bay and one slipped down her cheek. “When do we leave?” 

“Right now. I have a quintet waiting at the airport.” Coulson said. “Pack up.” 

Kai raised a hand and pulled it through the air, like she was unzipping something and a hole appeared in the air. She opened it wider and Coulson’s eyes widened in shock as he looked into a small pocket dimension, about the size of a storage container. She smirked at his face, “you can go in if you want. Although there’s no guarantee I’ll let you back out.” She grabbed Bubbles and put him inside the pocket dimension on a small table. “Okay, let’s go.” She stepped out and sealed up her storage space. 

Coulson blinked, “that’s all?”

Kai shrugged, “there’s nothing else I need. None of this is mine.” 

“Then who’s house is this?” 

Kai shrugged, “I don’t know.” That was a lie, she did know. She had picked out the house and then sent the owners to another city where she had manipulated the CEO of a large company to give them high paying jobs and a house while she lived in their house. But, SHIELD didn’t know that she was a Psychomenti, someone who had the ability to control people's minds, and she wanted to keep it that way. “Let’s go.” 

Coulson led her out to the car and she climbed inside as he backed out of the driveway and onto the highway. 

“Can’t you go any faster?” 

“I’m going the speed limit. Besides, the quintet will get us there in two hours.” 

Kai sighed in annoyance, settling back against the car seat. She could’ve shadow travelled but SHIELD didn’t know she could do that either. 

All these secrets were beginning to pile up. 

And now that Steve was alive… she’d have to make sure he stayed silent about some of the things he knew about her. 

He was one of the only two people who knew about the Eternity Stone and her desperate attempt to reassemble it so she could go back home. 

She wondered if he’d be happy to see her or if he’d hate her for being unable to save him. 

_______________________

Times Square was bustling with tourists and Kai and Coulson were moving through the thick of it, towards an office building on the other side of the square. 

The people pressed around them and Kai pushed through them, breaking into their minds to subtly clear a path so she could get to the building where they were keeping Steve. 

Before they could reach the building, a blonde man came running out of the front door and agents swarmed around him. Several black cars jumped the curb and surrounded him. 

Kai broke into a run, pushing through the tourists crowding around to see what was going on. “You’ve been asleep Cap,” Fury’s voice reached her, “for almost seventy years.” 

She struggled through the crowd, kicking several agents out of her way and leaping over a car. 

“I had a date,” Steve was saying as she slid over a hood and landed next to Fury. “Kai?” He stared at her for a long minute. 

Kai swallowed, waiting for him to yell. He would hate her for not finding him. “Yeah,” she said cautiously, “it’s me.” 

Steve studied her for a long moment and then he gave a hesitant smile. “At least there’s one thing that stayed the same.” 

Kai let out a strangled laugh, trying to hold back her relieved tears. He didn’t hate her. 

“We’d better get inside,” Fury said, “and let you two talk.” 

Kai actually listened to him for once, going back into the building. “Sorry about that wall,” Steve said awkwardly where the agents were cleaning up the man sized hole he’d put in the stage. 

They were led to an empty room and the door shut behind them. 

“Kai,” Steve said, “I don’t understand. How are you still-.” 

Kai put up a hand, “they’re listening to us.” 

Steve went silent although she knew he was brimming with questions. 

She reached out and pulled him into a hug. “Hang on,” she whispered and vanished into shadows. 

All the SHIELD agents watching them saw was a quick blip on the screen before it came back into focus and Steve and Kai kept talking. The agents were oblivious that the two people they were watching talk about mundane things were actually holograms. 

Kai held on tight to Steve as they whirled through the shadow world and thudded to a stop in an empty loft in Queens in a large warehouse. Kai had held this property for years but she had vacated it ten years ago when she had left New York. She was glad now that she hadn’t sold it. 

“I forgot about that,” Steve shivered from the leftover effect of the shadow world before he spun around to face Kai, “what are you still doing here? I thought you would have assembled the Eternity Stone and opened a portal back to your dimension by now!” 

“It’s not easy to hunt down tiny pieces when I don’t have a way to track them. I’ve been playing it by ear for a while and after I fought with you in World War 2 I’ve been keeping my head down.” 

Steve ran a hand through his hair, “I can’t believe it’s been seventy years.” 

Kai swallowed, “I’ll get the tough stuff out of the way,” she said, “all of the Howling Commandos lived long happy lives working for SHIELD or other government agencies. I kept tabs on them and helped them out when they needed it.” 

“And Peggy?” Steve swallowed, fearing the worst. 

Kai gave him a long look, “she’s alive.” 

Steve took a shuddering breath, “but?”

“She’s in a retirement home in New York, she has alheizmers. Half the time she’s here, and half the time she’s back in World War 2. I used to visit her but her niece asked me to stop coming, apparently I was doing more harm than good since I don’t age and keep sending her into episodes.” 

“Can’t you fix her?” 

Kai sighed, “my Deiltre work on injuries. I can’t do anything against old age.” Her entire species was immortal, none of them had ever grown old before so there had never been a reason to learn how to heal old age. 

Steve swallowed, “can I see her?” 

“Of course.” 

“What about the stone? Where are you with that?” 

Kai shook her head, “I’ve found about half of it but I’ve reached a standstill. It seems the rest of the shards are still hidden. There hasn’t been any major disasters that scream ‘I’ve been possessed by a piece of a powerful weapon from another dimension.’” 

“But what about your home? When you arrived here, the entire planet was dying and you had to bring the stone back to save it. How much longer do you have before it's too late for you to save your people?” 

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her face, “alright, enough with the depressing talk. Let’s start on things that you’ve missed. First on the list; Star Wars.” Kai forced a smile on her face. 

Steve noticed the change in subject but knew better than to press. “Sounds good but first, we need to get back to SHIELD before they find out we’re missing.” 

Kai reached out for Steves hand, “for the record, I’m glad you’re alive again,” she said. 

“I’m glad you’re here to guide me.” Steve squeezed her hand as they dissolved back into shadows and reappeared back in the white room at SHIELD. 

Their holograms vanished as the cameras sputtered. A second later, the door opened. “Hopefully she caught you up on what’s important,” Fury said. “We have a lot to talk about Captain. About your place in the new world.” 

___________________________

Coulson rewatched the video, noticing how Kai and Steve vanished briefly twice. There was something they were missing. 

“So?” Fury asked, “What do you think?” 

“I think there’s something they’re both keeping from us,” Coulson said, “something they don’t want SHIELD to know about.” 

“Well, it’s your call if we bring them in on the Tesseract project.” 

“I think we should wait, neither of them know we have the Tesseract. It might be better to keep it that way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


	2. A World Made Free

Kai paced outside Peggy’s room, keeping a careful monitor on the minds inside for any signs of distress. She wanted to go in and see her but knew she needed to let Steve and Peggy have this moment. 

Although that didn’t stop her from snooping on their conversation. 

Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Kai turned to see Sharon Carter coming towards her. “I heard you brought Captain America.” 

Kai nodded, “he needs to see her. It might have been seventy years since he died for her but for him, it’s been less than a week.” 

“Alright but she’s been doing really well lately. I don’t want this to set her back.” 

“I’ve been listening to them talk, I can step in if it gets bad.” 

Sharon pursed her lips, “I’ll come back later. Don’t stay for too long, she’s getting weaker.” Sharon walked off down the hallway and Kai watched her leave.

The door opened and Steve stepped out, holding back tears. “Let’s go.” He whispered and they quickly left. 

Kai frowned at him, “what happened?”

Steve wiped tears from his face, “nothing. It was just hard.” 

They walked back to her apartment in silence, Steve’s eyes darting around the city like he was seeing it for the first time. 

Kai knew how he felt. She had fallen through a portal into another dimension and had been stranded here. Steve, Bucky and Peggy had been the ones to help her adjust. Kai prayed she could return the favor to Steve now. 

She couldn’t think of what to say or what to do. She had had the luxury of walking into people’s mind and answering any questions she had in seconds; Steve didn’t have that luxury. He had to relearn how to do things, a lot of things. 

They stopped on a street corner and Kai frowned at the cars passing by, “you didn’t ever get your drivers license, did you?” 

Steve shook his head, “they just assumed someone had taught me how to drive.” 

“I can’t believe they just handed you a motorcycle.” 

“Luckily I was a super solider, remember how many broken bones you had to fix for me?” 

“Too many to count.” They crossed the street with the crowd, heading down side streets and away from the main hustle and bustle of the city. “And then you went and blew it up!” 

“It was necessary for the plan,” Steve deadpanned. 

“It was totally not,” Kai argued, “I could’ve easily teleported inside and just opened the gate. Or just walked up and broke into everyone’s minds and they would’ve just let us walk in.” 

Steve smiled, “but then it wouldn’t be as fun!” 

Kai rolled her eyes, “with you back, things are gonna get interesting again.” 

“Are you saying hunting down pieces of a magical weapon from another diemension that you need to save an entire dying world isn’t interesting enough for you?” 

“First of all, it’s called Deiltre. Not magic. Secondly, it’s just a normal 9-5 these days.” 

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to change that.” 

They reached a giant warehouse that doubled as Kai’s loft and walked inside a side door. Kai flipped on the light and Steve whistled, “did you rob the Smithsonian?” 

The entire bottom floor of the warehouse had been converted into a mini museum of artifacts and art pieces that Kai had collected over the last seventy years. Anything she liked, she’d taken and replaced with a replica. 

Steve blinked at the seventeen foot tall statue of David. “That is not what I think it is.” 

Kai shrugged, “I was practicing my Kritu.” 

“Remind me what that is again?” 

“I thought you had perfect memory recollection?” 

“Only when I’m paying attention to your long magical rants about why you aren’t a ‘magician. Or excuse me, what was the word you used to describe yourself - a Druid?” 

“A Draoi.” Kai corrected, “and Kritu is shapeshifting and transformation magic,” she explained, “I’ve been out of practice so I decided to see what the biggest thing I could clone was.” 

“Please tell me that that’s a clone and not the real thing.” Steve stared up at the towering face of David. 

Kai didn’t bother to answer him, she only smiled. “Come on, let’s go eat something.” 

Steve followed her through the museum and towards the elevator up to her loft. The last few times they had come through here, they had shadow travelled and he hadn’t seen the bottom floor. 

He paused at a glittering crown of jewels. “You just have all this stuff sitting here for someone to steal?” 

Kai scoffed, “who do you think I am?” She faced the elevator, waiting for it to open. “I have so many spells on this place that if a rat gets in here, it’ll be turned to dust on the spot.” 

“So, I shouldn’t show up unannounced?”

The elevator opened and they both stepped inside. “You and Bucky are the only two people who have permission to enter my houses.” The elevator dinged and they stepped out into Kai’s loft which had been decorated with various things from her portable storage dimension. 

“What do you want for dinner?” 

Steve shrugged, “I’ll eat anything.” 

“Yeah but we aren’t on a warfront anymore. I can cook things with ingredients you didn’t have in the forties.” 

“Can you make my mom's secret brownie recipe?” 

Kai slipped past the barriers in Steve’s mind with ease and pulled up a memory of his mother making the brownies. He remembered it perfectly because of the serum, the recipe was written out on a piece of paper on the counter and even though his three year old self couldn’t read at the time, they could both read it now. 

“Brownies for dinner? Sounds like a plan!” Kai grinned, “grab the mixer out from under the counter,” she cast a picture of the mixer and it’s location into his mind and they got cooking. 

The mental boundaries between Steve and Kai had always been thin, especially during the war. Kai had kept up a mental tally on all the Howling Commandos and used her psychomenti powers to project images or commands from Steve into all of their minds and she could even control their bodies to get them out of danger if she sensed a Nazi aiming a bullet at one of them and didn’t have enough time to warn them. She had spent most of her time during World War 2 seeing the war through hundreds of different eyes on both sides. 

And now that Steve was back, it was easy to slip back into that habit. As they cooked, they shared memories of their battles without speaking, playing them out in each other’s heads in perfect clarity. Steve’s memories were sometimes harder to be in because of the way the serum reacted with his brain. He could literally feel those memories all over again, smell the battlefield, feel the cold snow biting into him. 

Kai kept him from spiraling into his memories by playing back memories of him and Bucky that she had picked up over the years from being so deep in both of their minds. 

They kept up a steady stream of conversation although neither of them ever spoke out loud. 

Brownies were made and they both kicked back to watch Star Wars, each with their own thirteen inch pan of brownies.

“Have you ever been to space?” It was the first words Steve had said out loud in the past two hours. 

Kai nodded, “not in this world. I was in my own universe. The stars were dying out one by one and I wanted to see the last one before it vanished. I got to watch it turn into a supernova. It was the most beautiful but terrifying thing that I’ve ever seen.” 

“What happened after that?”

“Our world lost most of its light, except for what the supernova was giving off. The war was restarted because of the lack of resources and it lasted for thirty years.” She swallowed, “and then I managed to find the Eternity Stone, only to fall through a portal in this world and watch the stone shatter across Earth.” 

Steve didn’t have the ability to feel her sadness but he could see it painted across her face. “Well, at least I have a tragic backstory to rival yours now. A lab experiment who fell asleep for seventy years and lost everyone he ever loved.” 

Kai nudged him, “not everyone.” 

Steve slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, “no. Not everyone.” Kai snuggled up to him, not needing a blanket because he was a walking furnace and turned to watch the movie. 

______________________

She woke up a few hours later, the Netflix Home Screen playing the same commercial over and over again. She flicked her finger and the TV shut off. 

Kai was curled up against Steve who was fast asleep, breathing steadily next to her. She sat back, studying his face, she had never thought that she would seen him again. 

Something tugged at the back of her mind and she tensed, concentrating. Deep in her mind was a web of strings, each of them connected to people all over the world. The closests was Steve and the farthest were several people in Australia who she kept tabs on. 

The string that was tugging at her was Steves. She lifted her gaze to his and noticed the frown on his face and the way he was tense against her. 

Kai let out a slow breath and slipped into his mind, knowing that his memories would be just as bad as the first time he had lived them. 

Gunshots. Screaming. Explosions. Fireballs searing the snow around her and making it sizzle. 

Kai stood back in the center of the war in the final assault on the HYDRA base. 

Steve’s memories were intense and she could move freely through them, like she really was back in World War 2. There were the Howling Commandos, cutting their way through the enemy lines.

Kai turned as she heard a familiar voice and turned to find herself face to face with her pas self. She was dressed in one of Peggy’s spare uniforms with blood covering her body as she used her chakram’s to cut through person after person, her blood soaked dreads flying back and forth as she twisted and spun through HYDRA agents, cutting them down one by one. 

Kai knew what was coming next and could barely stand to watch. Rumbling filled the air and the Howling Commandos and Kai all turned to look up as the Valkyrie shot into the air. “STEVE’S ON THE SHIP!” Kai shouted out, “come on! Let’s finish this!” She and the Howling Commandos ran back into the base. 

Kai swallowed the lump in her throat as she watched her past self and the Commandos vanish into the base. 

This was her biggest regret, not going after Steve. She thought he was capable enough to handle the Red Skull himself. 

She should’ve gone after him…

The memories around her whirled and Kai was suddenly standing on the deck of the Valkyrie, unable to move and speak as she watched Steve’s memories play out before her. 

He battled the Red Skull back and forth across the bridge, the Tesseract glowing in its handle in the center of the room. The Red Skull grabbed it and vanished in a blast of blue light as the Tesseract ate through the floor and vanished into the ocean far off. 

Steve stumbled for the beeping controls and then the dream shifted again. 

Kai fell with Steve as they plowed into the ice and water flooded his lungs and choked him slowly. She watched, heart breaking, as Steve left his seat and laid down in the ice and froze over slowly. 

Kai felt the cold seeping into her bones, felt the air choking from her lungs, felt the heavy press of the water on her body. 

She tried to yank out of his mind before it was too late but Kai’s own memories were spinning out of control at the feeling of being suffocated. 

She was back in the cave, muzzled and bound with chains built just to contain her. She was back in the suffocating darkness, the pain of the Soul Eater stone around her sucking away her Deiltre and leaving her to die. 

Her voice was hoarse from screaming, her fingernails gone from where she had tried to claw her chains off, her wrists broken and dangling from where she had tried to rip her own hand off to get out. 

But the chains held her strong and she would not be released until her mother allowed it. 

Until she was strong enough to resist the suffocating stone around her. 

Kai gasped awake just as Steve did. 

“What was that?” Steve said, gasping for air. “What did you show me?” 

Kai wiped the tears dripping down her face, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean too. You were freaking out and I went into your mind to wake you up but I got pulled into your dream and when we were - when you were drowning it just brought back bad memories and…” She stopped herself, taking a deep breath, realizing she was rambling. She lifted trembling hands to her face and rubbed it, trying to focus. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to show you that.” 

Steve reached out and gripped her shoulders, “Kai, you can talk to me.” 

She swallowed and shook her head before she reached out and flipped on all the lights in the apartment. She had spent years trying to get reaccustomed to the dark and had finally succeeded but now she felt like she could never sleep again. 

In the light, she was able to think clearly again. “My mother wanted me to be stronger than everyone. I only had one weakness and she sought to eradicate it from me. She thought that by constant exposure, I would become immune to the powers of Soul Eater metal. So, she locked me in a cave covered in it and left me there...for a hundred years.” 

Steve’s hands tightened on her shoulders, “I’m sorry.” 

Kai swallowed, “it was over three thousand years ago, I don’t hold grudges for that long.” 

“Good to know that someone is still older than me.” 

“Please, to me 94 is a newborn.” Kai forced a smile on her face, rolling her eyes. “Come on, lets actually get in a bed before we fall asleep on the couch again.” 

She opened her pocket dimension and pulled a queen bed out and set it in the living room for Steve. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah,” Steve gave her a smile that was just as fake as her own. “Tomorrow.” 

Kai left him to go sleep alone. 

Being alone was a familiar feeling to her. It had haunted her for the last seventy years. Even though she was surrounded by friends, they had all died, some suddenly and some slowly and she realized that she was alone. She would outlive them all. Outlive the entire world unless she assembled the Eternity Stone and got back home. 

Her people, the Singers, had outlived their own world to the point it was crumbling to dust around them. She had no interest in being on Earth long enough to see the rise and fall of another galaxy. 

She would get back home and she would use the Eternity Stone to bring life back to her crumbling world and stop the endless war that was plaguing her land for the past one hundred years. 

___________________________

Steve’s nightmares continued for the next week. Each one was getting worse and worse, his PTSD twisting them into something else until Kai wasn’t sure what really happened when he confronted the Red Skull. 

Sometimes Steve was the one who grabbed the Tesseract and was transported to the cold heart of space where he suffocated slowly, his eyes boiling in his head. 

Sometimes the Red Skull was defeated and Steve landed safely but when he went to dance with Peggy, he had seen his reflection in a mirror and realized that he had become the Red Skull. 

Sometimes the red on his skin was from the blood of the hundreds of people he’d killed. 

Sometimes he had never been given the serum and was sitting in Brooklyn, reading the letter about Bucky being killed in action. 

Most of his dreams featured the Tesseract. The Tesseract’s power consuming him, the Tesseract’s power killing Peggy and even killing Kai. The Tesseract burning through him and stripping the serum from his body. 

The Tesseract haunted his nightmares day and night and Kai wished she could help. 

Sometimes she’d slip into his mind and try to modify his nightmares but the serum in his blood was strong and it normally resulted with him waking up and spending the night pacing the museum below. He spent hours in the section of items she had dedicated to World War 2, staring up at the HYDRA tank and staring at his old shield and one of the showgirl costumes. 

It had been two weeks since Steve had gotten out of the ice and Kai realized she was failing. He wasn’t adjusting, he was haunted by the past and couldn’t focus on anything. She had to do something but she didn’t know what. 

She had never been good with emotions. She had mastered locking up her emotions deep inside of her and never feeling them so when people came to her with emotional problems, she had no advice to give them. 

But Steve was one of her best friends in this world, she had to do something to help him. 

Maybe there was a spell to help him sleep? But, the spell books in the back of her pocket dimension were forbidden to use. If she ever got home and anyone had realized she had used Dark Deiltre, she would lose her throne. 

She spent the days with Steve in the gym on the second floor of her warehouse, both of them avoiding their problems with exercise. 

It had been a long time since Kai had gone up against anyone who could even come close to matching her speed and strength and although she still had to pull her punches and move slower than she would’ve back home, it was more of a workout than doing it alone. 

They didn’t talk, both of them aware that they were just putting off the inevitable break down. Steve couldn’t accept the past and Kai was struggling to accept the future. He had fallen asleep and missed his life and if Kai failed to find the rest of the shards, she’d fail to get home and save her people. 

How were either of them supposed to comfort each other when there was no guarantee that either of them would be okay?

After working out, they’d eat food and they would go out and do something; see a movie, eat a food that hadn’t been invented in the 40s, drive fast cars or just walk around New York. 

Then they would both pretend to sleep for a few hours and then do it all over again. 

Steve was finally asleep in the other room, dreaming about Bucky and Kai was pacing the bottom floor of the warehouse, wondering what she could do. 

She felt the mind of the person walking up before they even reached the door and shadow travelled across the room, swinging open the door before Coulson could touch it. 

“What do you want?” She barked. 

“We need your help.” Coulson sounded desperate and Kai reached out for his mind but his mental shield was still intact. She could shatter through it and find out what was wrong but then SHIELD would know what she was capable of. 

She put a finger to her lips and stepped outside, “Steve is sleeping. What is it?” 

Coulson held out a file labeled top secret. Kai flipped it open and froze as she saw a picture of the Tesseract. “You found it?” 

“A while ago,” Coulson continued and Kai shot him a scathing look. Coulson didn’t flinch, “you revoked your SHIELD clearance after Peggy left. You made it clear you didn’t want anything to do with us.” He reminded her. 

“This is the Tesseract!” Kai shook the file in his face, “I spent years looking for this!” 

“We can discuss that later,” Coulson said, “we have a problem.” 

“Let me guess, Fury’s been poking at it?” 

“I can explain more on the way, but we need you to come in and take a look at it. You and Steve are the only two who studied it who are still alive.” 

Kai put up a hand, “I’ll come. Steve stays.” 

Coulson frowned, “fine but you need to come quickly.” 

“Why, what’s happening?” 

“I’ll explain on the way.” He turned and walked toward the Quinjet which was parked on top of a building across from her. 

Kai cast out her Deiltre and conjured a note next to Steve on his pillow to read when he woke up. She followed Coulson who was impatiently waiting for the elevator inside the building. 

The moment they were both in the ship, Coulson hit the autopilot and they were shooting off for the desert in Nevada. The quinjet could get them there in two hours. 

“How long have you had the Tesseract?” 

“Since Dr. Wendy Lawson was studying it to create a light speed engine,” Coulson explained, “you remember her, right?” 

“Yeah. She and one of her test pilots died in a crash. I remember.” Kai crossed her arms, noticing how Phil didn’t exactly meet her eyes, “and you just conveniently forgot to mention this to me?” 

“To be fair, you were very adamant on staying away from us.” 

Kai sighed, “fine, what do you plan to do with it?” 

“We believe the Tesseract holds the key to unlimited energy.” Kai didn’t bother to tell him that they would have better luck hooking her up to a battery than powering the Tesseract. 

The Tesseract was useless and she knew it. All it had done was open a portal to another dimension and pulled her and the Eternity Stone through it. She still wasn’t really sure what had happened that day, all she knew was that the two stones were sister stones and when one called out to the other, a portal opened between them. 

She had assumed that the Tesseract could help her locate the shards but it had been lost to the ocean before she could test out her theory. 

And now she was learning that SHIELD had had it this whole time. 

Maybe she shouldn’t have left SHIELD. Maybe she should’ve stayed and kept fighting for them. But, she knew that every time Peggy looked at her she could only see the people she had lost. 

Kai studied the file, maybe now she could put her hypothesis to the test. She had been practicing her Kritu, maybe it was time to see how accurate of a clone she could make. 

If she could replace the Tesseract just long enough to disappear, she could use it to hunt the shards and send her and the Eternity Stone back home. 

If the Tesseract could actually hunt the shards, that is. 

“We’re here,” Coulson peered out the front window and Kai looked out to see a familiar base spread out before her. 

“Isn’t this Project PEGASUS? I thought it was shut down after the incident?” 

“We reopened it to study the Tesseract.” 

Kai watched the people running around, “and what else?” 

Coulson didn’t answer, “come on, we need to get going. Fury should be here soon.” 

The quinjet landed and they walked out into chaos. Kai quickly shut off her mind from the panic around her as agents ran back and forth, evacuating the entire base. “All personal evacuation orders have been confirmed. Proceed to your designated vehicles for immediate evacuation.” 

Kai followed Coulson through the chaos too a helipad outside where Nick Fury and Maria Hill had just landed. 

“How bad is it?” Fury shouted over the roar of the helicopter blades. 

“That’s the problem sir! We don’t know.” 

Fury shot a look at Kai, “I thought we were leaving her and Captain Rogers out of the Tesseract project.” 

“Kai has worked with the Tesseract before, she might be able to shut it down.”

“Shut it down? What are you talking about?” Kai asked. 

“You’d better follow me,” Coulson said, “I’ll explain on the way, there isn’t much time left.” 

Kai followed them quickly through the base, her eyes flying over everything, connecting the dots between the base she had once known and the new base that it now was. 

They climbed into an elevator and moved downwards, deep underground, farther than Kai remembered the elevator going. “Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago,” Coulson explained as they hurriedly moved through the agents evacuating the base. 

“NASA didn’t authorize Selvig to go to test phase,” Fury said. 

“He wasn’t testing it. He wasn’t even in the room.” Maria and Kai exchanged confused looks and Kai debated on breaking into everyone’s minds and revealing her powers just to get some answers. “Spontaneous event.” 

“It just turned itself on?” Maria asked. 

“What are the energy levels now?” 

“Climbing.” Coulson responded as they rounded a corner, passing men in lab coats and the STRIKE team loading up silver boxes. Kai slowed to watch them, wondering why the STRIKE team was all the way out here on a science base. 

Rumlow turned towards her and she kept walking, not wanting to get in a fight. 

Coulson was still talking, “When Selvig couldn’t shut it down, we ordered evac.” 

“How long until we get everyone out?” 

“Campus should be clear in the next half-hour.” 

“Do better,” Fury ordered and Coulson nodded, recognizing his dismal and ran off to do what Fury had ordered. 

Kai stayed in step with Maria and Fury. “Sir, evacuation may be futile,” Hill pointed out as they walked down stairs even deeper into the base. How deep did this thing go? Kai wasn’t human but if she was, she’d be winded by now. 

“We should just tell them to go back to sleep?” 

Kai stayed silent, reaching out with just a few tendrils of her power so she wouldn’t get overwhelmed and reached down into the pit they were walking into. She picked out a brain she recognized, Clint Barton who she hadn’t seen since Budapest. 

There was another mind as well, Dr. Eric Selvig. At first, his mind seemed normal but as she reached farther into it to see what his thoughts on the Tesseract were, she found a mess of tangled together strings that zapped her mind when she tried to reach in further. 

She jerked back with a hiss. What the hell was that? 

She reached out again, screwing up her face and pushing but the energy in Selvig’s mind shifted, pushing her out. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t belong in Selvig’s mind. She wasn’t even sure if he knew it was there. It was malicious and violent, like a parasite. She had seen a form of this type of mind control before back in Eruvian, her home world, but no one on Earth should be capable of that kind of sorcery. 

“Feeling alright Kai?” Fury asked, bringing her back to the here and now. 

“Fine,” Kai said, “let’s hurry. I want to meet this doctor for myself.” Something didn’t smell right. 

Fury turned to Maria, “I need you to make sure the STRIKE team gets all of Phase Two out.” 

“Is that really a priority right now-,” Maria started to protest. 

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it continues to spin on,” Fury said, rounding on Maria. Kai cocked an eyebrow, wanting so badly to learn what Phase Two was but not willing to risk SHIELD finding out about her mental powers to risk it. “Clear out the tech below, every piece of Phase Two on a truck and gone.” He ordered. 

“Yes sir,” Maria turned and marched off, leaving Kai with Fury. 

They walked into a huge concrete room with a dome ceiling above them and the walls seemed to press in around her. She concentrated on her breathing, pushing back the panic that was rising up inside of her. The memories of her time in the Soul Eater caverns was still fresh in her mind. It wans’t even dark in here, the walls weren’t closing in. She was fine. 

“Talk to me doctor,” Fury ordered, his voice echoing around the large room. 

Kai focused on other things in the room, looking at the monitors and the doctors frantically moving around. Their panic wasn’t helping her own so she quickly shut off her mind, surrounding herself with only her own thoughts. 

Her eyes fell on the circular contraption in the room, the Tesseract glowing in the center of it, sparking and thrumming with energy so strong Kai could feel it from across the room. 

“Director,” Selvig came around and moved towards them. 

“Is there anything we know for certain?”

“The Tesseract is misbehaving,” Selvig explained as a scientist stuck a long metal tube into the Tesseract and it sparked brightly. 

“Is that supposed to be funny?” 

“It’s not funny at all. Not only is she active, she’s behaving.” 

Kai studied the Tesseract and its power with awe. She had never seen it this active. Was that why she hadn’t been able to use it to hunt the shards? It hadn’t been turned on? 

But now, the power rolling off of it was as strong as the Eternity Stone had been before it had been shattered. Goosebumps rose on her arms as the power called to her and the Tesseract sparked again. 

With this she could open a portal home. Maybe she didn’t even need the Eternity Stone anymore. Maybe the Tesseract could help her. 

“I assumed you pulled the plug?” Fury asked. Kai followed him, gathering her magic inside of her. It would take a miracle to properly clone the Tesseract. She wasn't even sure if she could do it properly. 

It would take time, that’s for sure and she wasn’t sure how much time she had. 

“She’s an energy source, we turn off the power, she turns it back on.” 

Something about Selvig was bothering her. His eyes reflected the glow of the Tesseract strangely even when he wasn’t near it. 

Had Selvig done this? What would be his goal? It seemed like a pointless plan. 

“If she reaches peak level…” 

“We prepared for this doctor, harnessing energy from space.” 

“But we don’t have the harness, my calculations are far from complete.” 

Unless, someone from Eruvian had figured out a way to control him. Were her friends coming for her? 

Her heart leapt as she thought about the family she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye too. She had grown up with them, had fought in countless wars with them, they had been with her when she had been crowned queen over all of Eruvian. 

She hadn’t let herself hope for a long time but now, she couldn’t help the fiery flame of hope that burned through her at the thought that maybe someone had found a way to come back for her. 

“I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things,” Fury was saying and a string in her mind pulled. 

She turned to see Barton and Fury approaching her. 

Kai forced herself to turn away from the Tesseract that she had been staring into like a lovesick idiot. She couldn’t give herself away now, she had to focus and steal it without any of them knowing. 

“Well, I see better from a distance,” Clint replied. He nodded at Kai, “long time no see Kai.” 

Kai smirked, “not since Budapest at least.” 

Clint grinned, “really? I don’t remember Budapest very well.” 

Fury cleared his throat, “might I remind you two that we are on a time sensitive mission.” 

“Sorry sir,” Clint apologized. 

“Have you seen anything that might have set this thing off?” Fury gestured to the Tesseract which had started to spark even more. 

“Doctor, it’s spiking again!” A scientist shouted out. 

Fury and Clint climbed up to get a closer look at the Tesseract, ignoring the scientists. 

Kai moved closer, feeling the surge of power deep in her bones. Anticipation swirled through her, wondering if her family was coming for her. 

“Selvig’s clean, no contacts. No IMs.” 

Kai followed them up onto the platform, eyes only for the Tesseract. 

“If there was any tampering sir, it wasn’t at this end.” Clint finished and Kai tensed, wondering if he had figured out what she suspected as well. 

“At this end?” Fury repeated 

“Yeah the cube is a doorway into Kai’s dimension. Right?” He looked to Kai for confirmation and she shrugged. “Doors open from both sides.” Clint shrugged, like the answer was obvious. 

Fury slowly turned to face Kai. “I thought you said the doorway was sealed.” 

“And I thought you said the Tesseract was lost.” The equipment was beeping furiously behind them and the scientists were shouting but Kai didn’t care. 

“What have you called into our world?” Fury barked, “who is coming through?” 

“I don’t know,” Kai insisted, “all I know is that I’ve never seen it this active.” 

“Shut it down,” Fury commanded as it began to throw off more energy. “Now.” 

Kai bared her teeth, “I don’t work for you.” But she moved past him and towards it. She conjured her Deiltre and reached out with tendrils of black and gold energy that swirled and twisted around her fingers. She had to steal it now, she might not get another chance. 

She could pretend to shut it down and replace it with a clone...then she could take the real one and use it later. 

It was foolproof. 

The Tesseract spiked again and Kai hesitated. She hadn’t seen anyone from her home in so long. 

The entire room rumbled and the Tesseract threw off energy that seared her magic with its own. Kai winced in pain, pulling her magic back as the base rumbled again around them. 

Cracks spread out around the room and Kai’s magic failed as panic settled in on her again. Memories of the Soul Eater cave came crawling back. 

The Tesseract whistled and the harness beeped with warnings as a line of pure blue energy shot from its center and flew across the room. An unstable blue portal opened up on the other end of the room and through it, Kai could see the hazy view of constellations that didn’t match Earth. 

She tried to pinpoint some of them, trying to see if she recognized any of them from the skies in Eruvian. What season was it there? 

Before she could get a good look, the portal exploded. Kai braced herself as the blue energy flew through the room and shot through her body, surging her with power. It flew up the walls and gathered on the domed ceiling, pulsing and glowing. 

The rest of the room was plunged into darkness and Kai immediately called up several small balls of light. She was already deep underground, she couldn't handle the dark as well. 

Her eyes landed on a person crouched at the other end of the harness, under the portal. 

They were smoking and glowing so Kai couldn’t get a good look at them. 

She pushed past the others, moving closer, trying to see who it was. Was it Arin? Or Evan? Who had come for her? 

She reached out with her mind, determined to see who it was. If it wasn’t one of her knights, it would most likely be a Silene - the enemy of her people and the ones who had spent their lives trying to kill her. They were the reason the war had begun in the first place. 

The entire room was silent, watching the man on the dias. 

Her mind hit a very solid shield that attacked her like the one on Selvig’s mind did but ten times stronger. She pulled back, wincing from the pain as it tried to crawl down the strands of her powers and into her own mind. 

The man lifted his head, grinning. His long black hair stuck out at odd angles and he was sweating. His eyes were sunken in and it looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long time. 

Kai had seen many tortured soldiers in her life and this man seemed to be one of them. But, his grin told her that there was something else going on here. 

The man slowly got to his feet, his eyes moving quickly over the room and counting the amount of threats there. 

When his Tesseract blue eyes met Kais, something pulled in her chest, a feeling she wasn’t sure how to place. She quickly double checked her mental shields, wondering if he had found a way inside. She hadn’t had to check them since she had fallen to Earth since she hadn’t met anyone who could use mind powers. This man was a Phsycomenti, like her, someone who had the ability to read and control minds. 

“Sir!” Fury shouted, “please put down the spear!” 

Kai reached out a hand and slipped it into her pocket dimension, pulling her connected Chakrams from inside. It was one long circular blade with a hilt in the center of it. She twisted it and popped it into two pieces, gripping it tightly and sinking into a ready stance, turning the chakram into two separate charkrams with half circle blades. 

The pale, black haired man looked down at his scepter and then back up at Fury. For a moment, it looked like he didn’t understand him but then his face split into an evil grin and he pulled the scepter back and fired at Fury. 

Clint pushed Fury out of the way and the blast of energy from the scepter destroyed a nearby computer. 

The agents began to fire their machine guns but the bullets didn’t seem to phase him at all as he drove his scepter into one of their necks and sliced the neck of the other with a knife. 

Kai fell back, analyzing his movements, trying to decide when to strike as the other agents fired with their machine guns from across the room. 

The man spun around and knives flew with painstakingly perfect accuracy and sunk into the agents necks, dropping them like stones. 

He fired another shot with his scepter, taking out the blonde scientist and her computer. 

Kai slid into a fighting stance and gathered her Deiltre for the first attack. 

The man was all over the place, slicing the neck of another man with his scepter. 

Clint fired a shot and managed to hit the black haired man in the neck and Kai froze as he grunted in pain but didn’t fall. 

He immediately recovered and fired a shot at Clint but he rolled out of the way and it killed another agent behind him. 

He turned away from her to face off the last agent and Kai lunged for him. She attacked first with her psychomenti magic, sending a powerful spear of energy directly into his head. It would normally drop a less capable opponent but the living shield around his mind absorbed it and roared back at her. 

The man spun to face her, “you,” he sneered, slicing with his scepter. Kai caught the attack on her right chakram. 

“Me,” Kai smirked at him and sliced at his side with her other chakram. He dodged it and kicked at her but she spun away, lifting both of her weapons up and gestured for him to attack. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said. 

The man lunged for her again, grinning at the new challenge. “I get the feeling that you shouldn’t be either.” He fired a blast from his scepter and Kai dodged it barely, rolling away. 

Clint appeared next to her, firing an arrow at the man which he caught and snapped in two in his hand. “I thought I took care of you.” He grabbed Clint by the neck and threw him across the room. 

“Clint!” Kai shrieked as his body collapsed. 

She turned back to the man with a hiss, letting the careful illusions around her form peel back just enough so she could bare her fangs and flash her silver eyes at him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What are you going to do about it?” He laughed. 

Kai knew he was goading her into fighting but she could take him on. She was a Celestial Singer, a queen, an immortal. She could handle this...creature. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fury reaching for the Tesseract and packing it into a briefcase. She’d missed her chance to steal it but she’d rather let SHIELD have it than this man. 

She lunged for him again and again, both of them trading blows back and forth between her two Chakram’s and his scepter. He was fast and obviously well trained and Kai hated herself for starting to breath hard and lose some of her speed. It had been seventy years since she had met someone who could keep up with her and she hated to admit that she was falling behind. 

The man grinned and she realized he had been trying to outlast her this entire time. She shrieked in annoyance, striking harder at him, realizing too late that he had deliberately been working her up. 

He kicked her solidly in the chest and she went flying backwards, tumbling into the dead bodies of a few of the agents and landing underneath the glowing blue energy that was pulsing on the ceiling. 

She could see the cracks spreading out from it and realized they were going to be buried if she didn’t get out of here. 

She turned to see the man with his spear to Clint’s chest. She peeled back more of her glamour and flew across the room, her wings burning golden in the dark room. 

The scepter stopped just shy of piercing Clint’s heart and she watched as light curled up from the scepter and settled into his eyes, making them shine with a blue light similar to Loki’s and Selvig’s. 

Clint turned to face her and pulled a knife from his belt. She braced herself to fight him but instead he turned the knife on himself and plunged it towards her own heart. 

Kai shadow travelled the rest of the way across the room faster than he could blink and ripped the knife from Clint’s hand with ease. “Me or him, you choose.” The man said and turned to face Fury who was moving silently for the door. “Please don’t, I still need that.” The scepter touched another SHIELD agent and brought him under mind control as well. 

Kai was busy with Clint who was now holding his breath and trying to strangle himself with his own hands. She pinned his hands down and wrapped tendrils of black and gold energy around his arms to tie him up. She punched him hard in the stomach to get him to take a breath. 

He gasped in shock and she put her fingers to his temples, shoving her way into his mind. 

If Clint died, Natasha would kill her and of all the monsters and magicians and warriors Kai had faced in her five thousand years of life, she knew not to piss off Natasha Romanov. She had no known weaknesses on this Earth but Natasha would figure out a way to keep her down for good. 

“This doesn’t have to get any messier,” Fury said, his voice echoing.

The shield the man had created around Clint’s mind to keep her from entering was strong. Kai pushed further into it, fighting past the burning as it tried to destroy her concentration as she worked to undo the spell. 

“Of course it does,” the man replied. “I’ve come to far for anything else.”

Kai shoved harder, throwing her power against the shield as Clint held his breath again, determined to end his life like he had been spelled to do.

“I am Loki. Of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose.” 

Kai was only half paying attention but she managed to hear the name and place this Loki was from. Asgard? She had no idea where that was. Could the Tesseract open portals to other worlds as well? Did it not need a connection to open a portal like there had been between the Tesseract and the Eternity Stone? 

Loki turned on Dr. Selvig, taking his mind fully under his control. 

The spell on Clint’s mind was complicated, unlike anything she had ever seen. The spell was a living, breathing thing, designed to keep anyone from breaking it. 

Clint was turning blue and Kai was running out of options. 

““I come with glad tidings, of a world made free.”

“Free from what?”

“Freedom.”

Why wasn’t Fury running? 

The base rumbled again and more cracks spread out from the ceiling. Kai realized exactly why Fury was stalling. 

He meant to bury them. 

Panic settled in around Kai and her grip on the spell faltered and the spell on Clint’s mind took full hold. 

Her panic grew as Clint started to pass out from the lack of oxygen. 

Kai had to get out of here, she refused to be buried underneath rock again. She would have to choose. Get out, save Clint, steal the Tesseract or stop Loki. 

There was one last thing she could try to break the spell and she tried to calculate how much strength she could use to smash Clint’s head on the ground without killing him. 

“Sorry Barton,” Kai whispered before she cracked his head hard on the concrete, wincing at the sound it made. But, she felt the spell fade as his body went limp and he gasped for air. 

Loki spun around to face her, feeling the spell break. Before he could lunge for her again, Kai turned her body into shadows, moving across the room and towards the Tesseract in the briefcase in Fury’s hand. She would have enough time to grab it and get out. Maybe Clint and the others would make it. But, she wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to find out. 

The world was moving in slow motion around her, she was moving faster than light itself but apparently, Loki was armed with more than just a blue glow stick. 

His scepter fired in the exact spot she began to reform behind Fury, her hand already reaching for the briefcase. 

The power of the scepter carved through her before she had fully reformed, burning her from the inside out. A scream tore its way from her throat and she crumbled to the ground, her body smoking and shadows swirling around her as she struggled to reform. 

Loki laughed again, “I like you.” He purred. 

“Sir,” the other agent said, “this place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us.” 

“Like the pharaohs of old.” 

Kai tried to move, struggling to get to her feet, to make it to the door, to get anywhere but here but she could barely move. Her hands were still forming from the shadows so she couldn’t push herself up and her entire body was on fire, smoke curling out of her mouth. Her magic burned through her, pushing fire through her veins to heal her. Her panic only made her heart pump harder, sending the fire through her blood even faster. She tried to breath but her lungs hadn’t fully reformed yet. 

She was drowning on dry land. She was suffocating. 

A hundred feet of rock crushing her. 

The Soul Eater Caverns. 

One hundred years stuck in darkness. 

“The portal is collapsing in on itself, we’ve got two minutes before this goes critical. This place will be buried.”

Kai gasped in pain, trying to force herself to move. She couldn’t be stuck down here. She couldn’t die. 

Two minutes. 

She did the math quickly in her head, she wouldn’t be able to move in two minutes. She was already starting to black out from the pain. 

“Well then,” Loki looked to the agent who had spoken and he fired a single shot at Fury. 

Fury collapsed to the ground, clutching his side and Loki and the ones he’d put under his spell walked off. 

Kai noticed Loki’s boots at her feet and felt the cold steal of his scepter at her neck, lifting her chin to look at him. 

Her magic was too weak to keep up her glamour and her form flickered between her human one and the fanged, glowing eyed demon that she really was. “That spell won’t work on me,” she tried to speak but it came out more as a whisper. She was trying not to panic, just in case he could read her emotions. In reality, she had no idea if it would work or not. She was too weak to fight off much right now. 

“I’m half tempted to take you with us, just to watch you die.” 

Kai forced a smile on her face although blood stained her teeth, “I’d disappoint you. I’m hard to kill.” 

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” He kicked her over as Selvig scooped up the Tesseract case and they walked for the door. 

Kai managed to get enough air in her lungs to call out one last insult, “go to hell!” 

Loki turned to look back at her, “I’m already there,” he promised. They kept walking, Loki stumbling only once, blood peppering the floor around him as he clutched his side before he straightened back up. 

Kai couldn’t remember anyone hitting him there, perhaps it was an old injury? 

She didn’t have long to dwell on it before the ceiling began to crack. 

Fury groaned, struggling to sit up, and she realized he wouldn’t be able to carry her out of there. 

Kai reached out with any of the powers she had left and entered Clint’s mind while his mental shields were down, making him snap to attention and get up and move towards them. His head was bleeding and his eyes were clouded but he was moving. 

Kai ordered him to pick her up and he carefully slung her up into his arms bridal style. “Come on,” she said through gritted teeth. “We have to stop him.” She wasn’t going to let him get away with the Tesseract. 

Fury yanked the bullet from his side, “Hill?” He gasped into his radio, “do you copy? Selvig has turned.” 

He struggled to his feet, “come on!” 

They began to run, Kai jostling in Barton’s arms. Barton stumbled and moved sluggishly but they pressed on, his eyes clouded from the mind control Kai had placed on him. 

“They have the Tesseract, shut them down!” 

The portal behind them was sucking things up into it and they barely cleared the room before they themselves would’ve been sucked up into it. 

Kai concentrated all of her magic onto healing herself so she could walk. The moment they had reached the elevator, she was able to stand. 

They rode the elevator in silence and Kai leaned heavily against the wall. Fury eyed Barton’s blank face, “what did you do to him?” 

“I needed to get him out.” Kai breathed out, taking deep breaths and trying to control her panic as the base rumbled around them. Her powers were still weak and for a moment, she was grateful for that, if she was any stronger, her panic would’ve taken over and the monster she had discovered in the Soul Eater caverns might come out to play. 

And she couldn’t let that happen. 

“So, you can control minds like Loki but I know you aren’t from Asgard.” 

“I don’t know where Asgard is. It’s not from my world.” 

“Which means the Tesseract doesn’t just open portals to your world, it can open portals anywhere.” 

“Let’s discuss it later,” the elevator dinged and they were back in the chaos. The ground was starting to crumble underneath them. 

“Run!” Kai shouted and they took off for the helicopter waiting to take off. Barton and Fury pulled ahead, leaving her to stumble behind. They both jumped onto the helicopter and Fury spun around, “COME ON KAI!” 

Kai lunged for his hand but the floor gave out from underneath her. She ripped the glamour from her form as she fell into the crushing darkness, spreading her wings and launching upwards, dodging the falling stones and the crumbling base around her. 

She was almost back to the surface, pushing herself and her magic as far as she could go when a truck slipped through the hole and she couldn’t avoid it in time. 

It slammed into her and sent her crashing down into the crushing blackness underneath the base. The last thing she felt before she blacked out was hundreds of thousands of pounds of rocks settling on top of her and her spine snapping underneath the weight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


	3. Super Secret Boy Band

Steve’s nightmares had been getting worse. The serum hadn’t just heightened his body but his mind too. His nightmares were so realistic he could see them playing out behind his eyelids like he was back there. He could feel the cold, feel the dirt and blood on his face, hear the fighting and smell the burning flesh of the men who were turned to ash by HYDRA weapons. 

It was already hard enough to accept the present but his mind kept pulling him back into the past and it was so realistic, he sometimes wanted to give in and live out his days in his head. 

But he couldn’t do that. He would get better and move on. He had too. 

He had to believe he could get better.

The punching bag he had been pounding for the last ten minutes broke off with one more solid punch and he stared at it, breathing hard. It had taken him five hours to reach the point where he could actually start to feel the workout. 

He picked up another punching bag and hung it up with ease, going back to punching it again and again. 

The rhythm was the only thing keeping him focused. Fighting was the one thing he was good at. Fighting was all that he had been trained to do. 

He had tried to draw, tried to stencil his life in pictures, tried to put it on paper so it was easier to let it go. 

He had burned his entire sketchbook. The pencils broke in his hands, they didn’t fit right between his new calluses. His new fingers weren’t made for creating. 

They were made for destruction. 

He forced himself to think about something else, anything else than the crushing weight that settled heavily on his chest with each breath. 

Sometimes he wondered if he had ever stopped drowning. 

“Trouble sleeping?” A voice echoed through the empty gym and Steve paused and looked up to see Fury across the room. 

Kai had left him a note saying she’d gone off with Coulson. Maybe Fury had come to explain why. 

He turned back to the punching bag, thinking of SHIELD only reminded him of Peggy. “I slept for seventy years sir, I think I had my fill.” He punched the bag as hard as he could, finally feeling pain smart through his knuckles but his body healed quickly. 

“Then you should be out, celebrating.” Fury was coming closer but Steve knew something was off about him. Fury didn’t do small talk. Something was wrong. “Seeing the world.” 

Steve paused again, looking Fury up and down. He was tense, there was blood on his face and he was walking favoring his right side. Steve knew an injured and desperate soldier when he saw one. Fury was holding a file in his hand, blood still caked underneath his nails. 

He turned from the punching bag, beginning to unwrap his hands, knowing he was about to be pulled into something else. 

“When I went under, the world was at war. When I wake up, they say we won. They didn’t say what we lost.” He dropped his wrappings in his bag and started on his other hand. He knew what he had lost, his friends, his family, his life. All of it had been taken by war. 

And although he knew he wasn’t the only one affected, it felt like he was alone. 

“We’ve made some mistakes along the way, some very recently.”

Steve couldn’t help but pause and look up, his eyes landing on the file again. “You here about the mission, sir?” 

“I am.” 

“Trying to get me back into the world?” But why had they called Kai away? 

“Trying to save it.” Fury held out the open file and Steve turned to see what this new mission was about. 

Right in front of his face was the thing that haunted his nightmares the most. When the Red Skull had died, he had seen his body dissolve into space. He had seen the universe stretched up above him and it had made him realize how terribly small and insignificant he was. He wanted to save everyone but he knew that he couldn’t. Not when the world was so big. 

Steve reached out and took the file, not touching the picture with the Tesseract on it, as if it would come alive and burn him and rip him apart like it had the Red Skull. 

“HYDRA’s secret weapon,” he flipped through more photos. 

“Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That’s something the world sorely needs.” 

Steve closed the file and handed it back to Fury. “Who took it from you?” He asked, secretly praying it hadn’t been Kai who had taken it and he was being tasked to hunt her down. Kai had always believed the Tesseract might be able to help her hunt down the shards of the Eternity Stone but he didn’t think she would go as far as to steal it. 

But, she was getting desperate to get home. And desperate people did stupid things. 

He would know. He let a German scientist experiment on him so he could serve his country. 

“He’s called Loki,” Fury said and Steve internally relaxed, glad Kai hadn’t made her move yet. He couldn’t stand across one of his only remaining best friends on the battlefield. “He’s….not from around here.” 

Steve shot him a look, knowing Fury was keeping something from him. “There’s a lot we’ll have to bring you up to speed on,” Fury continued, “if you’re in.” Fury studied the file in his hand, “the world has gotten even stranger than you already know.” 

Steve couldn’t help but look away, “at this point, I doubt anything would surprise me.” He got to his feet, picking up his bag, turning away from Fury so he couldn’t see his face. If Fury did, then he’d know that Steve wasn’t feeling much of anything these days.

“Steve,” Fury called out and Steve froze, recognizing the change in tone. He slowly turned back to face Fury, knowing something worse had happened. 

Steve swallowed, “is Kai already looking for it?” He asked, knowing his voice sounded desperate, even to him. 

Fury looked down and then back up and Steve already knew what he was going to say. “When the Tesseract opened a portal….” He swallowed. 

“She went home,” Steve choked out, he clenched his fists as his blood pumped hot with anger. How could she leave him at a time like this?

“No,” Fury continued, he took a deep breath and gathered himself. “The portal caused the entire base to collapse. Kai managed to get me and Agent Barton out but she didn’t make it herself. She was buried in the rubble.” Fury lowered his gaze, “I’m sorry but she’s dead.” 

Steve stared at Fury for a long moment, “no.” He shook his head, “she’s not.” 

“Look, I’m sorry Captain but no one can survive that.”

Steve shouldered his bag and walked for the door, “which way to the base?” 

“There’s nothing you can do for her Steve.” 

Steve swung around, “you don’t understand. She’s not dead.” 

“Captain look-.” 

“No, she’s immortal. There is _nothing_ in this world that can kill her. Trust me, I would know.” Steve insisted, “I watched her get beheaded. We buried her and mourned for her. Her body grew back from where her neck had been severed and she clawed her way out of the grave. She can’t die Fury.” 

Fury’s eyes had widened and he pulled out his phone, “Hill. I need everyone not looking for the Tesseract working on uncovering section C3.” Hill gave a response that Steve couldn’t hear. “Yes, I know there’s no agents over there but Kai-...Agent Hill, Kai can’t die. She’s trapped under there and we need to get her out.” 

“And you need to do it soon,” Steve added, “if she’s trapped for long enough she’ll….she’ll do anything to get out.” 

“What exactly do you mean Rogers?” 

Steve swallowed, not about to give up his friends' secrets. “Just find her...before it’s too late.” 

_____________________

The first thing Kai felt was the pain. She didn’t bother to open her eyes, knowing it would be pointless. It was too dark to see anyway. 

Her arms and legs were tied down tight and she knew if she pulled her arms she would only feel the chains of Soul Eater metal chaining her to the ground. 

It had all been a hallucination, a dream made by her mother. She was still trapped in the Soul Eater Caverns, she had never gotten out. 

She would die here. 

The monster inside of her was crawling to the surface, taking advantage of her panic and begging to be let out. 

Her Deiltre was burning through her, healing her spine and her broken ribs and her snapped neck and slowly rebuilding her brain from scratch where it had been splattered on the impact. 

Her wings had been shredded to pieces and had gone dull in the darkness. 

Wait...her Deiltre? 

Her eyes flew open, realizing that the things around her were steel beams and concrete slabs and cars and weapons. 

She wasn’t back in the Soul Eater caverns. She was buried underneath hundreds of pounds of rubble at the Joint Dark Energy Reserve. 

She could hear people shifting around and cast out her mind but she was too weak to use her psychoeisis still. 

“HELP!” She tried to scream but she just choked on dust and dirt. 

She coughed and the rubble shifted, pressing down on her even more. 

How were they going to find her? She’d be trapped down here. They were off hunting Loki, they wouldn’t stop to rescue her. 

Her panic grew again. 

She couldn’t be trapped in darkness. Not again. Not like this. She’d keep suffocating and healing and then she’d be crushed and rehealed. Over and over she’d die and come back to life for years. 

The monster inside of her was screaming now, begging to be let out and she was losing the fight. 

Her body began to burn as it shifted, as the glamour that she kept up even when her magic was almost gone began to fade. As her final spells were burned from her body, she screamed in agony as scales sprouted from her skin and a tail of scaly skin grew from her back. Her wings morphed into bat wings, the bones snapping back into place as horns grew from her head, reforming the bones on her head and making her bruised brain scrape and bend in her skull. 

Her eyes sharpened so she could see in the dark and tears burned on her face as her pupils slitted. Her fangs stabbed into her bottom lip as her teeth sharpened and a growl split from her throat. 

The chaos magic in her bones roared to life, fusing her broken parts back together, searing her skin shut and boiling the blood off of her. 

She screamed but it came out as a roar as she pushed herself upwards, strength powerful enough to create canyons and level cities surged through her bones as she crawled her way towards the light. 

Kai lost herself to the monster, knowing it had its own agenda now. To rip and kill. She had originally been bred for war, a monster to destroy everything in its path. They hadn’t realized that she would be intelligent as well and could wield such powerful magic better than any of them. 

Kai knew the chaos magic wouldn’t last long, she was still too weak from the wound Loki had delivered to her internal organs. 

She could feel the burnout coming, the final end where her magic would send her into a painful coma for months on end. 

If that happened, she’d be in agony for days. And she still had to find the Tesseract and protect Steve. And hunt the shards. 

If she lost the Tesseract, she truly would have no way of getting home. 

Kai forced the monster back under her skin, rebuilding her magic as she broke the surface of the rubble and out into the fresh air. 

She managed to rebuild her glamour until she was just Kai again as lights blinded her and people shouted and she could see Maria running towards her. 

Kai couldn’t keep the relieved tears at bay as she felt the fresh air on her face. 

____________________

Steve stood over Kais stretcher, watching the heart monitor beep and the breathing tube pump air into her lungs. He watched as her body knit back together, as bones shifted and pushed back into place, her skin undulating as veins rebuilt themselves. 

They had given her a heavy sedative but Steve knew she had felt most of it before they had found her. 

Maria was flying the ship and had told them about how she had clawed her way up to the surface before she had blacked out. They had felt the rumble and had heard her roaring and had thought the base was collapsing again. 

They weren’t sure what had happened but Steve knew. He had seen her turn into the creature she refused to talk about once before. After Bucky had died, she had torn apart an entire HYDRA base on her own, leaving nothing but cinders and bodies ripped to shreds. 

Coulson stepped up next to him, “Vitals are holding steady.” Coulson reassured him, “We think.” Coulson cleared his throat, “we aren’t sure what normal vitals are for an inter dimensional immortal from another planet.” 

“She’ll be fine,” Steve reassured him, “I just never get used to seeing her like this.” 

Coulson shifted next to him, “kind of reminds me of when we found you.” Coulson was silent for a second, “I gotta say, it’s an honor to meet you. Officially.” Steve gave him a reflex smile, remembering all of the times he had met hundreds of kids and parents while he had been serving as the Star Spangled Man With A Plan. “I sort of met you, I mean. I watched you, while you were sleeping.” There was silence for a second and Steve moved across the ship, leaning to look out the window. “I mean, I was present while you were unconscious,” Phil followed him, mimicking his stance. “You know, it’s just- it’s just a huge honor to have you on board.” 

“Well,” Steve frowned, “I hope I’m the man for the job.” 

“Oh you are,” Coulson promised, looking at him like all those kids had during his performances. He missed it when he had been able to inspire hope in so many people. Maybe this would be good for him. He was used to battlefields and fighting. It was the only thing he was good at now. “Absolutely.” 

“We made some modifications to the uniform,” Coulson continued, “I had a little design input.” 

Steve’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t worn that uniform since he had failed Peggy, and his friends. He had saved the world but had lost his own. “The uniform? Aren’t the Stars and Stripes a little...old fashioned.” 

“With everything that’s happening. The things that are about to come to light. People might just need a little old fashioned.” 

Beeping from Kai’s monitors kept him from answering and he spun around, moving to her side as she coughed heavily on the breathing tube. She reached up to yank it out but Steve stopped her, “whoa, whoa, whoa, you need to just breathe. It’s there to help you.” 

Kai opened her eyes, one of them was still red with popped blood vessels. Even though she couldn’t speak yet, she still could glare at him. He didn’t even need their mental connection to know that she wanted to move. 

“You probably shouldn’t move,” he said knowing she’d ignore him. 

_Let me up or I’ll kick your ass_ , she said to him telepathically. 

Steve smirked, “alright, this might hurt.”

Kai cocked an eyebrow, _my neck, spine and ribs were crushed and a metal pole severed my leg from my body. This is nothing._

_Good point_ , Steve replied and slowly pulled the breathing tube from her throat. 

Kai coughed, sitting up slowly and moaned in pain, rolling her neck. Coulson handed her a bottle of water and she drank the entire thing in record time. “Update me,” she said hoarsely. 

“We’re on our way to the Helicarrier now,” Coulson continued, “we’re about thirty minutes out. Loki and Dr. Selvig are still missing. Barton has recovered from Loki’s attack and the others are being gathered now.” 

“The others?” Kai asked, “who?” 

“We’ve activated the Avengers Initiative.” 

Kai sighed, “I thought Fury was joking about that.” Her eyes flickered to Steve, “who else is on the team besides me and Steve?”

“Dr. Bruce Banner, the Hulk. Natasha and Clint, who you know. And Stark.” 

“Stark?” Steve and Kai both asked at the same time. 

Kai could easily read Steve’s mind and answered his question before he could ask it. “Tony Stark - Howard’s son. Not Howard. Howard died in a car crash a while ago.” She turned back to Coulson, “I thought Stark was rejected from the program.” 

“We can’t afford to leave anyone on the bench for narcissism. Not now.” 

Kai and Steve exchanged a knowing look. “I mean… if he’s anything like his father…” Kai started. 

“This is going to be interesting,” Steve finished for her. 

They touched down at the base a little while later, unloading onto the helicarrier. Steve couldn’t help but feel that he was finally in the right place, this was the one thing about the modern century that reminded him of home. 

And he wished it didn’t. 

He had spent his whole teenage years wanting to join the war but now he wished he could go back in time and stop himself. 

Natasha walked up to them and Kai nodded to her. “Natasha, how’s Clint’s head? 

“He’ll live. You know how he is. He’ll get shot and complain about a papercut instead.” Coulson quickly introduced Steve to Natasha. “They need you on the bridge, they’re starting the Face trace.” Coulson nodded and walked off. “And Kai, Fury wants to see you.” 

Kai winced, “wonderful.” She mentally checked that Steve was alright with her leaving before she followed Coulson inside. 

Fury was on the bridge, giving orders as the ship prepared to take off. “I heard you decided to stick around.” Fury continued, messing with his own control panel and turning to face her. 

“Maybe for a little bit,” Kai replied. “At least until Loki is stopped.” And she could get her hands on the Tesseract. 

The Helicarrier took off into the sky and Kai couldn’t help but admire how far the humans had come since she had arrived on Earth. 

The door opened behind her and she turned to see Steve, Natasha and the man she assumed was Dr. Banner entering the room. 

“This is Doctor Banner,” Fury pointed to the other man next to Steve. “He’s our expert on gamma Radiation.”

“I guess you could call it that,” Banner said, shaking Kai’s hand. “I assume you’re another superhuman from the 1940s.”

“Kind of,” Kai said, “it’s a long story.”

Banner moved off to talk to Fury, “how long am I staying?”

“Once we get our hands on the Tesseract you’re clear to go.”

“Where are you with that?”

“We’re sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet; cell phones laptops, if it’s connected to a satellite it’s eyes and ears for us,” Coulson replied, standing by a bank of monitors in the corner.

“Didn’t have that in the 40s,” Kai whispered to Steve.

“Don’t even get me started about the day I’ve been having,” Steve said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Likewise.”

“How many spectrometers do you have access to?” Banner continued, debating on the best way to track the Tesseract.

“How many are there?”

“Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I’ll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. You got somewhere for me to work.”

“Agent Romanoff can take you to your lab,” Fury motioned for Banner to follow Natasha and they left.

Now it was just Steve and Kai on the bridge, “once we find Loki, you two will be on call to stop him. Kai, are you good from earlier?” Fury asked. 

“I heal quickly.” Kai reassured him. 

“So, you can travel through shadows. You can fly. You can break into the minds of my top agents and turn them into your personal minions and you can’t die. Anything else I should know?” Fury asked. 

Kai glanced at Steve and then smiled. “You can bribe me to do anything with chocolate.” 

Fury only stared at her, “how does it work?” 

Kai shrugged, “I was bred for war. Part of that breeding was to make sure I didn’t die. Sure comes in handy when I need it too.” 

“Sounds like it could be a hell of a curse as well.” 

Silence descended as they stood around awkwardly for a second. Coulson pulled Steve into a conversation about signing his mint condition trading cards while Kai moved over to the monitors, watching the hunt for Loki and Selvig. For some reason, she was drawn to Loki’s face. 

He was handsome, she had to admit it but he was also insane. His eyes were glowing blue like the Tesseract which she found odd, almost like how Selvig’s eyes had looked before he had been put under Loki’s mind control. 

She studied Selvig’s own picture and noticed his eyes were a dark brown. 

“What is it?” Maria asked, noticing her frown as she studied the two images. 

“Nothing,” Kai said automatically, “I was just looking.” 

The monitor beeped and Sitwell spun around on his chair, “we’ve got a match on Loki.” Kai could see the monitor, showing a 67% match and climbing. “He’s not exactly hiding.”

“Captain, Kai,” Fury said, “you’re up.”

Kai jumped to her feet and they rushed from the bridge and towards the quinjet, Natasha following her. 

“You still have a suit?” Kai asked as they raced for the quinjet.

“Yeah, get on the jet, I’ll meet you there.” Steve replied and she raced for the quinjet.

Natasha and Clint were powering up the ship, “hey Clint, glad to see you're doing better.”

“Yeah, I’m just mentally scarred from being mind controlled by an interdimensional alien but other than that I’m fine,” he teased, “is Rogers on his way?”

“Yep,” Kai strapped herself into one of the spare seats, leaving the seat belt loose because of her still tender ribs and spine. “Sorry about the mind control thing, I was out of options.”

“Yeah Fury warned us you might be able to do that but we weren’t sure until you actually did it.” Clint replied, “can you read our minds?”

“No, most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have mental barriers up,” Kai reassured him.

“How much does Rogers know?” Natasha asked.

“As much as you do.” Even more, in reality. 

Steve came running on the ship in a suit that screamed America! “Wow,” Kai smirked as he climbed on, “I guess that means we won’t be doing a lot of undercover work.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “shut up Kai.”

“Next stop, Germany.”

She couldn’t help but notice his tight smile and pressed at his mind, _what’s wrong?_

Steve winced, _I feel like a dancing monkey all over again._

Kai gave him a small smile, _at least you’re on the right side this time._

 _Hopefully._

And with that happy note, they were off to stop Loki. 

____________________

The closer they got to Loki, the more nervous Kai got. She didn’t like feeling nervous, it screwed with her judgment and made her act irrationally. She had no reason to be nervous, she was an immortal, unkillable being. But the pain from his scepter blast still weighed heavily on her mind. It had been a long time since she'd felt pain that intensely.

It had also been a long time since she’d met anyone who could match her in strength and speed. Loki had been able to stop her from shadow traveling, something no one had ever been able to do. Loki wasn’t someone she had been trained to fight; he wasn’t a Silene or a Reverend who used rituals to make powerful magic. He was a foreign being with unknown powers, what if in this dimension he found a way to kill her? 

Never in her life had she been terrified of dying. Death was a foreign concept to her, a bedtime story her parents had told her when she was naughty. 

“Loki will be able to sense me the closer we get,” Kai explained to them as they flew. “He’s also a mind reader so make sure your mental shields are in place.” Kai glanced pointedly at Steve who had a tendency to let them fall when he was with his friends.

“I”ll attack Loki, along with Natasha and Clint in the ship for backup. Kai, how far away do you need to be to not be noticed?” Steve asked.

“About a mile,” Kai estimated. Psychomenti could sense one another’s presence when they were around each other but only mentally connected Psychomenti could communicate over long distances. The only people she had long range mental connections with was Steve and Bucky, and it took time to build that up. And since Steve had been in the ice for seventy years, it was rusty and couldn’t reach as far as it normally had been able to. “I’ll hang back until you guys ambush him and then I’ll work to break down his mental barriers so we can discover his plans. If you need me, Steve can contact me and I’ll come.”

“Alright,” Clint said, “I think the best place to drop you off would be that building,” he pointed to a nice high building. “You aren’t afraid of heights are you?”

“No, I can get a good vantage point from up there.” Kai agreed and when they got close to the building, she jumped out, positioning herself on the roof so she could see where Loki had used illusions of himself to surround a kneeling crowd. 

The fact that he could create illusions didn’t sit right with her. If his powers were any more similar to her own, she’d be in trouble. 

Kai watched from the roof, monitoring the minds of the others around her. She reached into the minds of the people around Loki although she avoided his own mind, listening in on his soliloquy as he spoke about freedom and subjugation. 

Kai watched as Steve jumped into the fight, keeping tabs on his movements and hanging in the back of his mind, monitoring him and being a second pair of eyes. If Loki tried to surprise him, she could protect him. Either by casting a force field or moving his body out of the way. 

A whistling sound filled the air and Kai turned to see a small metal suit shoot past her towards the battle. _You’ve got incoming_. Kai warned Steve. 

Music blasted from the quinjet’s PA system as Tony Stark landed in the middle of the square, putting up his various weapons and pointing them all at Loki. 

_He looks just like Howard._ Steve said in shock and Kai received a mental wave of memories. 

_Watch your shields,_ Kai warned him. 

Loki put up his hands in surrender and his armour vanished. Kai spread her wings and flew towards them, wobbling a bit on the still thin skin that had just regrown and flying slowly so she didn’t rip it. She wasn’t going to risk shadow traveling with Loki nearby, she didn’t want to be out of commission again.

She stumbled as she landed, gritting her teeth in pain. Steve noticed and shot her an expasterated look. _I thought you said you were okay._

_I’m fine._

Tony leveled a blaster at her, “who the hell is this?”

Steve grabbed his arm, “that’s Kai. She’s with me.” 

Loki was watching Kai with a gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his face. His eyes travelled over her slowly, _I was wondering if you survived_. His silky voice echoed through the antechambers of her mind and Kai double checked that her shields were still in tact. 

They were which made her wonder how he had managed to send her a message without compromising her shields. 

_No thanks to you._ Kai bit back before slamming her powers against the outer shell of his shield. If she could describe what it looked like, she would describe it as a wall of black stone that reflected her own thoughts back at her. It was impressive work.

She flicked her hand and a tendril of energy snaked around his hands like handcuffs. “Let’s get him back to the Helicarrier.”

 _Did you find out anything?_ Steve asked.

_Nothing yet but I’ll get into his head eventually._

As they moved him to the ship, Kai felt his own magic move around her mental barrier but he found a wall just as impenetrable as his. If Kai had met her match, then he most certainly had met his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


	4. Shakespeare In The Park

Kai sat across from Loki, studying him just as intently as he was studying her. He looked...sick. Dehydrated. In pain. 

And his mind - something was wrong with it. Whenever she tried to read someone’s mind, she could always sense them on the other side. No matter how powerful your shields, there was always a tiny trace of what made you unique that another Psychomenti could pick up on. 

But Loki’s mind was silent. 

All she could feel was the wall of undulating power that pulsed in time to the scepter locked up in a glass box a few feet away from them.

She turned her gaze to the scepter and reached out for it, wondering what exactly was powerful enough to put people under control. 

She hit another shield, twenty times stronger than the one around Loki’s mind but before she could keep pushing, Loki’s voice echoed in the ante chambers of her mind again. _You’re quite powerful._

She lifted her eyes to meet his again, feeling that pull in her chest once again. _Scared?_ She purred. 

_Of a beautiful woman, never._ A slow smirk spread across his face. 

Kai scoffed and turned to face Steve. _Any luck with him?_

Kai shook her head, _Not yet. And be careful, I’m worried he might be able to hear us. I don’t know how powerful he is._ She shot Loki a glare but he was content to sit back and watch them move around the plane. 

Tony was watching the scepter, scanning it with Jarvis. “What the hell is this?” 

“You got something?” Steve crossed to his side.

“Not really, it’s too dense to even being to scan it. We’ll have to do it once we get back to base and I have some more storage space to work with.” 

The ship rattled as lighting struck outside. Clint banked hard to the right to avoid a blast of lightning. “Where’s this coming from?” Natasha pulled up a navigation guide and checked the weather. 

Steve’s eyes shifted to Loki who was looking fearfully up at the roof. “What? Scared of a little lightning?” 

“I’m not overly fond of what follows.” 

Kai, Tony and Steve all exchanged looks, happy to see that the others were just as confused as they were. 

Something heavy slammed into the top of the quinjet. Kai immediately dropped into an attack position, sliding her chakram from her belt and gripping it tightly. 

Tony reached up and opened the door, moving to look out. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Steve shouted at him as a man wearing a red cape came walking in. Before either of them could move, he grabbed Loki and vanished. 

“Who the hell was that?” Kai shouted over the roaring wind at the same time Steve shouted, “think that guys a friendly?”

“Doesn’t matter - if he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract is lost,” Tony slid on his helmet, moving to jump off. 

“Stark! We need a plan of attack!” Steve moved for the parachutes.

“I have a plan. Attack.” Tony jumped from the plane and Kai wasn't much farther behind him, spreading her wings and gliding downwards. 

Loki and the red caped man were arguing back and forth on a cliff. The wind was roaring too loudly in her ears to hear what they were saying but she didn’t need to worry about that much longer. Tony went plowing into the red caped man, sending them tumbling into the trees below. 

Leaving her alone with Loki.

Kai landed in the newly vacated spot, studying him. “Who was that?” 

“An unfortunate relative,” Loki brushed off his clothing, turning to glare at two ravens perched on a rock nearby. He fired a blast of magic at them and sent them scattering into the air. He turned to Kai with a fake smile, his hands outstretched. “You’re Kai, yes?” Kai didn’t answer, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow. Whatever he had to say, it was going to be good. Loki studied her body language and dropped the act. “I’m here to offer you a deal.”

“I’m not letting you go.” 

He gave a tiny laugh, “no, that’s not what I’m here to bargain.” Kais eyebrow raised higher, what else could he want? 

“When I arrived you tried to steal the Tesseract right out of Fury’s hands,” Loki looked impressed. “You played it off well but you would’ve taken it if you had the chance.”

“You overthink things. I was going to get it to safety.” That was a lie and they both knew it. 

“You aren’t a member of S.H.I.E.L.D., that’s clear,” he continued, “so it’s safe to say you’re here because you want something. I’ll bet it’s the Tesseract.”

“And what, you’ll give it to me if I let you go,” Kai rolled my eyes, “I’m not an idiot.”

“No, I’ll give it to you when I’m done with it.” He shrugged, “all I want in return is insurance, that you won’t get in the way.”

“Get in the way? Of what?” Maybe she could find out what he was planning. 

“Of my plan,” Loki simply stated, “promise you won’t interfere and I’ll hand over the Tesseract.”

“I’ll make no promises.”

“So, you’d rather have me as an enemy.”

“I don’t make it a habit to make enemies of powerful people,” Kai said. “I’ll make you no promises but I’ll consider the idea.” She owed nothing to S.H.I.E.L.D., she had no problems sitting out in exchange for a ticket home.

A shockwave rolled out from the clearing below and Kai braced herself against it. Once her ears stop ringing, she turned back to Loki. “I assume you have something planned aboard the Helicarrier if you haven’t tried to escape yet,” She flicked her hands and the handcuffs materialized on his wrists again. “It’s probably a mistake taking you back.”

“But an even bigger mistake to let me go and lose my offer,” Loki finished for her. The man with the hammer landed next to them.

“Loki, I am to deliver you to their Helicarrier.” Thor said, “who are you?” He asked Kai. 

“Kai,” she replied. “I’m with them,” She pointed to Iron Man as he swooped by, carrying Steve.

“Do you need a lift?”

Kai let her wings furl out behind her. “I got it.” She shot upwards for the quinjet.

“Welcome home honey!” Clint called out as she landed inside, “how was the party?” 

“Oh, the usual dear,” Kai replied, stepping aside as Thor flew in carrying Loki. “How far are we out from base?” 

“About ten minutes,” Natasha answered.

Thor pushed Loki back down onto his seat and Loki grunted in pain although Thor hadn’t pushed him that hard. Kai studied him, noticing the barely dried blood on his side and other wounds peppering the little amount of skin visible. She sat down across from him as the others stood in tense silence. “You know,” she started, “I could heal that for you,” she nodded to the burn barely peeking out of the top of his armour.

Loki only glared at her. 

“Hey princess,” Tony waved her over, “stop being sympathetic towards the resident psychopath.”

Kai glared at him, “don’t call me princess.” Did Tony even remember her? She had spent a few years around him when he was a child but she wasn’t sure he recalled any of it. 

“Why? Is Capsicle only allowed to call you that?” 

“Shut it Stark,” Steve cut in. 

“Oh, did I hit a nerve.” Tony smirked, “did not all of you unthaw when you came out? Wound a little tight? Maybe you lost something in the crash?” A headache split through Steve’s head as Tony yelled and he blinked hard to clear it. 

“We’re here,” Natasha interrupted before Kai murdered one of her oldest friend’s sons. 

Loki was studying them, a grin on his face and the scepter pulsed brightly before going dimmer. 

The STRIKE team was waiting for them on the landing platform and they surrounded Loki and led him off, deeper into the base.

“Fury wants us all on the bridge,” Maria said. 

“My brother-,” Thor started. 

“Will be locked up, securely.” Maria promised. 

They moved through the helicarrier, finding their way to the conference table on the bridge. 

Fury was talking to Loki already and they gathered around various monitors to watch Loki speak for the first time since he had arrived. “It’s an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me.” 

Loki had gone without a fuss into the prison aboard the Helicarrier. Kai was on edge the entire time, waiting for his apparent plan to kick into action.

“Built for something a lot stronger than you,” Fury said.

“Oh I’ve heard, a mindless beast that makes play he’s still a man.” Loki turned to stare directly into the cameras and Kai couldn’t help but feel he was looking directly at her. “How desperate are you? You call on such lost creatures to defend you.”

The words stung, as if Loki had known where to hit her where it hurts even though he couldn’t know that much about her. She was lost and she was alone here. 

And she was fighting in wars that weren’t even her problem. War was what she had been trained to do, and the moment peace seemed to be coming, another war only followed. 

“ _It burns you to have come so close_ ,” the words echoed both inside her head and out. Kai’s head shot up and she refocused on the camera to see Loki staring through it, directly at her. “To have the Tesseract, to have power. Unlimited power. And for what?” he continued. Kai realized it was a reminder of their potential deal. She could have it again, unlimited power. If only she made the deal. 

But she knew she couldn’t trust Loki. And she knew that the only reason he’d bother to make a deal with her was because she was powerful and a threat to him. If she played her cards right, maybe she could come out on top after all of this without having to betray Steve and SHIELD. Even though she had left SHIELD a long time ago, Peggy Carter had built it and she had to admit, she was a little sentimental. 

Fury left Loki in his cage and Loki turned to stare into the camera, his mind brushing up against Kai’s again and she gritted her teeth, sending several strings of curse words back at him. He smiled into the camera just before it went black. They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating what they had just heard.

“He really grows on you, doesn’t he?” Banner said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Loki has an army called the Chitauri. They are not of Asgard nor of any world you know. He means to lead them against your people, they will win him the Earth.” Thor explained. 

“So he’s building another portal? That’s why he needs Selvig.” 

“Loki has them under some kind of spell, several of our agents have fallen to it,” Natasha continued, “we need to figure out a way to break it.”

They all turned to Kai and Kai shook her head, “just because I broke it before doesn’t mean I can do it every time. The only reason I managed to break it with Clint was because the spell was so new.” 

“She hit me on the head,” Clint supplied. “But I don’t think that will work with everyone.”

“The longer the mind control spell is in place, the harder it becomes to break. Only a shock delivered to the individual can give them time to break it but it will all depend on how long they are under the spell and how strong their mental willpower is.” Kai explained. 

“That’s not my biggest concern,” Steve cut in, “I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He’s not leading an army from here.” Kai didn’t meet his eyes and Steve couldn’t help but wonder what Loki had said to her while he had been going to stop Tony and Thor from killing each other. 

“I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki,” Banner cut in. “That man’s brain is a bag full of cats you can smell crazy on him.”

“Be careful how you speak, he is my brother,” Thor reminded them all.

“He killed 80 people in two days,” Clint and Natasha said at the same time. 

“He’s adopted.”

“I would like to spend some time working on Loki,” Kai said, “he’s mind is complicated. I think with enough time I might be able to work through his shield.”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Tony said, walking in. “The metal they stole was a stabilizing agent. The portal will be active, and soon.”

“Then give me the night,” Kai shrugged, “tonight is a full moon. My powers will be…stronger than usual. My powers depend on the phases of the moon. The fuller the moon, the stronger my powers,” She explained quickly. “There’s more to it but that’s a quick explanation.”

“Trust me, she’s given me the long one,” Steve said, “my head was in circles for days.”

“I’m sorry but who exactly are you?” Tony asked and she realized that he didn’t know who she was. He didn’t remember that she had been there for his first inventions. Although she couldn’t blame him. She’d left. “No one really gave us an explanation. Are you a werewolf?”

“I was kinda wondering the same thing. If you wouldn’t mind explaining, of course,” Bruce asked, wringing his hands nervously between him. 

Kai sighed, “well, I’ll make it quick. I’m a creature from another dimension. I fell through a rift between this reality and the next and now I’m stuck here.”

“Oh, that’s very helpful. It just raises more questions than it answers,” Tony said, “is there anything else we should know about you?”

“No that’s about it,” Kai shrugged, exchanging an amused look with Steve. “Now, while you all talk strategy, I’m going to try and break into the mind of our resident sociopath.”

“Have at it,” Fury said, giving her permission. Not that it would have mattered one way or another.

Kai left them to keep talking about science and made her way to the detention level where Loki was pacing his cell. He paused the moment she entered, “back so soon?”

“You expected me?” Kai asked, moving farther into the room. With a nod to the guards and a quick little nudge with her psychomenti powers, the guards left them alone. 

Loki walked the guards file out slowly, “if you are trying to get me to spill my secrets through a false sense of security, it’s not going to work.” 

“That wasn’t the plan.” 

“And what is?” Loki stepped closer, coming up as close to the glass as he could get and leaned in. “Selvig told me what he knew about you. He described you as an angel, a goddess. A creature so powerful she could kill entire armies with a wave of her hand. And yet...you’re here.” 

“Maybe I like it here.” Kai concentrated and quickly took over the cameras in the room, keeping their conversation hidden and secret. She could not risk SHIELD finding out that she wanted the Tesseract and them hiding it from her. 

Loki let out a silky laugh, “No. I don’t think so. You want something.” He studied her face and Kai found herself leaning towards him, separated only by the thick glass. “You want the Tesseract but for what purpose?” His blue eyes flickered over her face. 

Kai didn’t answer him, “I’m not the one under interrogation here.” She hissed but her heart pounded, wondering how quickly Loki would find out the truth. 

“Selvig said you where from another world, another dimension. He said you were called in to stop the Tesseract from opening a portal but he said you failed.” Loki began to pace, “do you know what I think?” 

“Maybe if you open up your mind to me, I can figure it out.” Kai deadpanned. 

As he spoke Kai reached out again with her mind, gently prodding the shield around his mind, looking for any signs of weakness. The shield was almost a living breathing thing, it felt very similar to the one that had been around Selvig and Clint’s mind. That struck her as odd because there should be no strings attached to the puppet master.

 _Are you done?_ His voice pushed through her thoughts and caressed its way down her own mental shields. _You cannot penetrate my mind. You cannot control me._ The words almost didn’t sound like him, almost as if another voice was speaking.

A theory was beginning to form inside Kai’s mind, something that would ultimately change everything.

Loki continued as if she hadn’t touched his mind at all. “I think you want to get home more than anything. I think you want to use the Tesseract to open a portal back to your own dimension.” 

“If you don’t tell me your plans, then I won’t tell you mine.” 

“Oh but I like this,” Loki smiled, “you come to me as a potential ally. Fury is playing an interesting game. How far does your fake allegiance extend? Would you release me if I handed you the Tesseract?”

“Unless you happen to have it on you, then I don’t think that would work very well. But, you don’t want to be released, do you?”

“Are you here to figure out my plan?”

“If I was I wouldn’t make it so obvious.” Kai realized they were both standing as close as they could to each other with the glass separating them. She took a tiny step back, gathering herself. 

“Then why are you still here? You know you cannot get inside my head, so why bother to continue to talk to me?”

“I have nothing better to do.”

“If you think I will reveal secrets through friendship, then you are sorely wrong.”

Kai pulled up a chair and sat down, “well, I don’t trust you enough to leave you alone in here and I don’t trust the guards to do a good enough job watching you so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“So, you’re just going to sit here.”

“Yes. Problem?” Kai pulled a book and another chair from her pocket dimension and propped her feet up. “Do you want a book?”

Kai could tell he was annoyed with her but he sat back on his bed, “tell me how you got to Earth.”

“Absolutely not.” Kai replied, turning to her bookmark. 

“Oh, touchy subject? That only wants me to make me know more.” 

“Too bad.” Kai went back to her book. A second later she felt his magic prodding her minds defenses again, she ignored them until he slammed them against her mental barriers hard enough for her to wince.

“What the hell?” Kai said, “you aren’t getting into my mind either so stop trying.” She yanked on his magic with her own and he chuckled. Kai realized he was playing with her. She shut him out again and went back to her book.

Kai focused on the words but she didn’t read them, gathering up her magic inside of her for a final assault on his brain. The moon was full and had reached its apex and psychomenti were always stronger at night. 

She reached out with her mind to see exactly what his plan was. What she found was something much more sinister. It was as if two peoplye were at war with one another. One was the mind of Loki battling against something else. Kai was suddenly able to trace the source of the power creating such an impenetrable shield around his mind. She followed the string back to the lab where Banner still worked. The scepter that had controlled the minds of anyone Loki had touched it with was controlling Loki himself.

The spell was so intricately woven within Loki’s own mind that Kai wasn’t sure she could separate it from itself. Maybe destroying the scepter would break the spell?

 _What are you doing?_ Loki asked, _stop that!_ His voice sounded like his own but it seemed to be something else trying to push her out. Whatever was in that scepter was powerful and ancient. The spell on Loki’s mind was a powerful one, one that Kai didn’t know if she could break.

“What did you do?” Loki was on his feet, his fist on the glass like he had been trying to come through and get to her. His eyes were even bluer than they had been earlier, the same color Clint’s had been.

The scepter was controlling him. If she could destroy the scepter, it might break the spell on Loki. She didn’t know if that would do anything to stop his army but it would be something. 

Some part of her hoped that Loki wasn’t evil, part of her wanted him to be good. He was similar to her own people, so similar to her. She had spent her life being the only Celestial Singer in existence, she’d always been alone. 

For just one second she thought it might be nice to have someone like her around. 

_Kai!_ Steve’s frantic voice entered her mind, distracting her from Loki. 

_I’m a bit busy._

_Not for this you’re not._ He sent her a mental image of a HYDRA weapon. _Fury is using the cube to make weapons._

Kai’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “Excuse me for a minute,” she hissed at Loki. 

“Oh by all means,” Loki waved a hand, “I’ll be here when you get back.” For some reason, she thought he was lying. 

Kai dissolved into shadows, arriving in the middle of the hallway where Steve was stalking towards her carrying a HYDRA weapon. 

“Is this a model from World War 2?” Kai asked, studying it. 

Steve turned it revealing a SHIELD logo on the side, “that’s SHIELD’s logo if I’m not mistaken. There’s entire crates of them in storage.”

“I guess it’s time for us to see what exactly Fury is up too.” The two of them went stalking off down the hallway, the weapon swinging from Steve’s hands. Agents jumped out of their way, knowing from their faces that they meant business. 

“Stark’s AI has been hacking into the system,” Steve explained, “but I thought I would do things the old fashioned way.” 

Raised voices echoed down the hallway. “You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract.” 

“We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile.” Banner pointed to a scanner that was sweeping the Earth. 

“And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss.” Tony clicked a few buttons on his screen and a collection of secret files appeared. “What is PHASE 2?”

Steve and Kai walked in and Steve dropped the weapon on the table. “PHASE 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons.” He glared at Tony, “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me.” 

Nick put up his hands, “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're --.” 

“I’m sorry Nick,” Tony turned the screen towards Fury to show various weapon plans, including a nuclear missile. “What were you lying?

“I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit.” 

Natasha and Thor entered the room and Banner turned the screen towards her, Kai slipped into his head and was hit with a steady wall of anger. She pulled out, confused as to how he hadn’t turned into the Hulk yet. “Did you know about this?” 

Natasha was tense, standing in a ready position, like the Hulk was going to come out and attack her at any moment. “You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?” 

Banner wasn’t phased. “I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed.” 

“Loki’s manipulating you,” Natasha warned and Kai frowned, reaching out for Banner’s mind again. She could feel something besides the anger building in Banner but it didn’t feel like Loki. It felt more like the scepter. 

What was that thing? 

“And you've been doing what exactly?” Banner snapped. 

“You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you.” 

“Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.” 

They all turned to Nick and Natasha. Kai could see Fury’s mind plotting out his answer, even without being able to read it. “Because of them.” He pointed to Thor and Kai. 

Thor looked behind him and then back at Fury, confused. “Me?” 

“Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town.” Kai remembered that news story. She had thought it was a shard piece and had travelled to Punte Antiguo to try and find it, only to learn from a scientist named Jane Foster that it was actually aliens from another planet. Kai assumed it had been her own people but Janes description of them didn’t match her friends. It had been a mystery bothering her for almost two years now. 

“We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.” Fury continued. 

Thor frowned, “My people want nothing but peace with your planet.”

“But you're not the only people out there, are you?” Fury said, his gaze turning to Kai. “And this galaxy isn’t the only one either. The world’s filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled.” 

Kai bristled, “are you saying I need to be controlled Fury? Because that’s not going to end well, for any of us.” A headache was starting to build behind her head but she was too focused on what Fury was saying to pay it any mind. It was most likely an aftershock to the strong magic she had used to get into Loki’s mind earlier. 

“Because you did so well with controlling the cube,” Steve added on. 

“Kai, you come from a planet where everyone is like you. An entire world of people who - if they so wished - could level the entire planet without pause.” Fury argued, as if that was a good defense. 

“If you’d like a demonstration, I’d be happy to oblige,” Kai hissed, “I told you, the rift is sealed. If you were just going to build weapons, why did you even need any of us in the first place? Or did you build those weapons to control us, to make us fear you?” 

“You’re work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. If you had simply left it alone and realized it was something you couldn’t hope to control, none of this would’ve happened in the first place,” Thor cut in, “Making more advanced weapons is a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

“A higher form?”

“You forced our hand. We had to come up with something.” 

“A nuclear deterrent? `Cause that always calms everything right down!” Tony jumped into the argument. 

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?” 

“I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep in the Phase 2 project.” 

“Wait! How is this now about me?” 

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?”

“I thought humans were more evolved than this.” Thor said to Kai. 

“Tell me about it,” she agreed. “Maybe Loki has the right idea. They probably shouldn’t be ruling themselves.”

Nick rounded on them, “did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?” 

“Do you always hold a gun to everyone’s head and call it peace?” Kai bit back. 

“Maybe the reason you are so scared of us is because you don’t know how to control your own people,” Thor added. 

“Captain America was built for war with help from my father. Don’t pretend like you aren’t a weapon,” Tony was saying to Steve as they argued back and forth. 

“Are you all really that naive to think that SHIELD wouldn’t monitor us all? We’re all dangerous.” Natasha joined the fight and Kai’s headache grew. 

“Speak for yourself,” Banner cut in, “some of us wanted out of this life until you pulled us back in.” 

“SHIELD monitors potential threats.” 

“Oh so there’s a list?” 

“Captain America is on that list,” Banner snorted, “they consider him a threat.” 

“Oh so there’s a list now?” Tony asked, “who’s the most powerful? Kai or the Hulk?” 

“If you keep down the path you’re going Stark, you’re going to need a metal heart too,” Kai hissed. 

“That’s a verbal threat,” Tony pointed at her, “I feel threatened! Time for SHIELD to use their weapons. You can’t die, right? Maybe they’ll use you as a lab rat.” 

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos.” Thor spoke over all of them but no one stopped shouting until Banner spoke up, his voice louder and angrier than usual and they all froze, worried that the Hulk was about to make an appearance. 

“It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're -- we're a time-bomb.”

Fury put up a hand, “you need to step away.” 

Tony put an arm around Steve, “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?”

Steve knocked off his arm, “you know damn well why! Back off!” 

“Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.” 

Kai and Thor exchanged looks and Kai summoned a box of popcorn and held it out silently to Thor before she summoned her own. 

Steve smirked at Tony and looked him up and down before he began to speak. “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?” 

Tony was already prepared with his answer. How many times did he have to deal with criticism? “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” Okay, point to Tony. 

Kai and Thor crunched down on popcorn, watching their fight continue. Unless Steve asked for her help, she’d stay out of it. Steve could fight his own battles. 

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.” Steve continued, “Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire.” 

Maybe Steve was going to need Kai’s help to win this fight. 

Steve chuckled, “Always a way out -- You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.” 

A slow smile spread across Tony’s face. “A hero? Like you?” He chuckled and then his amusement faded as he stepped up into Captain America’s face. “You’re a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

Kai stepped forward, vanished her empty popcorn bucket but Steve put up a hand to stop her. _I can handle this._

“Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds.”

Thor laughed, chewing through the last of his popcorn. “You people are so petty -- and tiny.” His words seemed to ease the tension in the room. The headache in Kai’s head subsided slightly and she noticed that Tony rubbed his own head as well, taking a step back from Steve and blinking rapidly, like the lights were too bright. 

“Yeah,” Banner turned back to the scepter, “this is a team.” 

“Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-.” 

Banner spun back around again, “Where? You rented my room.

“The cell was just in case...” 

“In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!” They all went silent as Banner looked at them. He shrugged, “I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!” He pointed at Fury and Romanoff, straightening up to face off with them and everyone tensed as he moved, waiting for his skin to turn green. “You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff?” His hand moved as if on its own to the table behind him where the scepter lay. He picked it up without even looking and the entire room tensed. “You wanna know how I stay calm?” 

Kai slid her chakrams off her belt as the others in the room reached for their own weapons. 

“Doctor Banner,” Steve said and Banner turned to face Steve, his face seething with barely controlled rage and Kai tensed, ready to jump in front of Steve to protect him. “Put down the scepter.” 

Banner glanced down and blinked, as if he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. 

Before anyone else could move, the computer tracking the Tesseract beeped and Banner dropped the scepter as he moved towards it. “Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all.” 

“You located the Tesseract?” Thor asked. 

“I can get there the fastest,” Tony said. 

“Look, all of us-.” Steve started. 

“The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it.” 

Kai walked over to Banner to get a look at the screen, she’d have to get there first and steal it. “I can go get it, I can beat you all there.” 

“Is that a challenge?” Tony turned to leave but Steve grabbed him. 

“You’re not going alone!” 

Tony ripped his arm out of Steve’s grip. “You gonna stop me?” 

Steve stepped up to him again, “put on the suit, let's find out.” 

“I’m not afraid to hit an old man.” 

“Put on the suit.” 

Kai had turned to watch but the moment Banner muttered out a quiet, “oh my god.” She turned to face him to find him looking at Tony, horrified.  
“Wha-,” Kai started to ask, taking a step to get a good look at the screen but before she could reach him, an explosion rocked the Helicarrier. 

The ground gave out beneath Kai and she, Banner and Natasha plunged deeper into the ship. 

Kai shoved Natasha and Banner out of the way so most of the shrapnel and debris hit her. Several pieces cut deep into her side and stomach and a metal beam crashed down on her legs, cracking bone. She tried to keep her head from slamming into the metal floor but she couldn’t brace herself enough for the impact. Her head hit the ground with a loud crack. 

Kai shrieked in pain, blood dripping into her eyes as her magic started to work on her, healing her cuts. Pieces of metal moved through her body as her magic pushed shrapnel out of her. Kai gasped, trying to focus. She wished her magic kept her from feeling pain but that was the one thing that she’d never been able to figure out how to suppress. 

“Bruce?” Natasha whispered and Kai turned her head to see Bruce writhing on the ground, growling. 

Shit. 

Kai pulled herself from the wreckage, her leg screaming in pain. Banner let out a loud growl and stumbled away from them, growing bigger. 

Kai stumbled to her feet, limping heavily as her magic burned through her leg, knitting her bone back together. She leaned down and picked up the metal beams from off Natasha as Bruce let out a loud roar. 

Natasha looked behind her as Kai dropped the metal, “LOOK OUT!” 

Something heavy slammed into Kai’s side and she was batted through a water heater, hot water burning her body as the metal ripped at her skin.  
Kai rolled to her feet, biting her lip to keep from screaming in pain. She needed to find the scepter to keep it from Loki. 

The Hulk lunged for her again and she dodged while she reached out with her mind and shattered Natasha’ shield’s with a focused dart. _Go and stop Loki from getting the scepter!_ She shouted into Natasha’s head. _I’ll distract the Hulk._

Natasha grabbed her head, shouting in pain but she turned and began to run. The Hulk roared and started to go after her but Kai pulled a knife from her pocket dimension and threw it with perfect accuracy. 

It didn’t do any damage to the Hulk but it did get his attention. 

The Hulk turned to face Kai, pure anger on his face. 

Kai reached out for his mind, maybe she could call Banner and make him come out but the Hulk’s mind was only feeling one emotion. Anger. 

She couldn't even feel Bruce anymore. 

Her earpiece had been knocked out so she didn’t know what everyone else was doing but she needed to focus on getting the Hulk off of the ship. 

“Come and get me ugly!” Kai shouted before she took off running, the Hulk following after her. 

It had been a long time since she had felt anything like fear but the Hulk scared her. She knew he couldn’t kill her but her entire body throbbed with pain and she knew she’d only find more at the hands of the Hulk. 

The Hulk roared as something else slammed into him and went tumbling through a wall. 

Kai jumped through the wall to see that Thor had joined the fight as the Hulk roared at the two of them. “Did you stop to blow dry your hair?” 

“At least one of us wasn’t running,” Thor smirked. 

“I was considering my attack options.” 

“Sure you were,” Thor blocked a punch from the Hulk. “We are not your enemies Banner! Try to think!” The Hulk cocked back his other fist and Kai jumped on his back, pulling his fist back to keep him from punching Thor in the face. 

But Kai underestimated the Hulk’s strength. 

The Hulk yanked his arm forward at the same time he grabbed Thor and pulled him upward. Kai and Thor went tumbling into each other and across the floor. 

Kai groaned, getting back to her feet. “I haven’t taken a beating like that in seventy years.” 

“Oh then you’re overdue. Remind me to come back to Midgard every few years to remedy that.” 

“You think you can take me on?” Kai joked as they both lunged for the Hulk again. 

“I’ve spent over a thousand years with Loki and you two tend to fight the same. I think I could handle your tricks.” 

Kai swung behind the Hulk while Thor distracted him and she kicked him in the knees, trying to bring him down. The Hulk spun around and lunged for Kai and she blocked his punches with her forearms and her chakram, thankful they were made from vibranium and wouldn’t break. 

Thor wasn’t attacking, he was just standing there with his hand out. “I could use some help!” Kai shouted at him as the Hulk punched her hard in the stomach and she flew back and broke the wing off a plane. 

Thor simply shot her a thumbs up. “You’re doing great!” Kai flipped him off. 

The Hulk punched down at her and she managed to block his punch but his other fist grabbed her around the head, squeezing hard. 

Kai shrieked in pain, trying to claw off his hand with her own but he was crushing her skull between his fingers. The pain grew and for the first time in a long time, Kai was helpless to stop it. 

She couldn’t do anything but run away. She vanished into shadows, appearing a few feet away, pain screaming through her skull. 

“KAI!” The Hulk turned at the sound of Thor's voice and lunged for him but before he could reach him, a whistling sound filled the air and a hammer flew past Kai and into Thor’s hand and he slammed it into the Hulk's face, knocking him down. 

Kai slumped to the floor as Thor battled the Hulk and they crashed through another wall and into another room. Blood gushed from her ears, nose and eyes and her vision was fuzzy. 

She tried to get control of her breathing and frantic heart rate. 

It had been a long time since she’d been scared of dying and even though she knew that the Hulk couldn’t kill her, it still terrified her. 

She got to her feet, hearing frantic roaring from the other room and the sound of gunshots. 

She stumbled into the room, barely able to see just as the Hulk plowed into her. 

Kai screamed as she free fell from the Helicarrier, the Hulk ripping apart one of the escort ships above her. Kai spread her wings, trying to get control of her descent. The Hulk ripped off a metal wing and threw it right at Kai and she didn’t have time to avoid it before it plowed into her back. 

Kai’s right wing snapped with a crack and she plummeted downwards. She gathered up her magic but shadow travelling was difficult in this world and she had to wait before she could make another jump, especially now that her magic was trying to heal her broken body. 

Kai plunged downward, screaming. Above her, the Helicarrier shrieked and began to tilt to one side, falling from the sky. 

Kai focused on healing her body as she fell, working on her wings and counting down the seconds until she could shadow travel.

She spread out her body, slowing her descent, the air like a wall beneath her. 

The ground was closing in on her. 

She’d have to time this perfectly. 

And it was going to hurt. 

The impact wouldn’t kill her but if she didn’t try to land at an angle, she’d most likely splatter on impact and it would take months for her body to reform. 

If she could land at an angle, she could skid across the ground. It would still probably be devastating but less so than hitting straight on.  
The water was close to her as well, maybe she could hit the water instead of the land. 

Below her was the ocean except for a rocky part of the shore that jutted out into the water. She would need to land close enough to swim to it. 

Kai spread her wings, gritting her teeth as her right wing flapped around at an odd angle and banked just enough to the left to avoid hitting the small rocky peninsula. 

She braced herself and forced herself upwards, causing her wings to catch the wind and force her backwards by a few hundred feet at the last second. 

Kai plowed into the water, the ocean tearing across her skin as she sunk to the bottom. 

A huge cloud of sand went up around her as she hit the sand hard enough to break her ankle. It hadn’t been very deep but it had cushioned her fall. 

The air had been shoved out of her lungs on impact so she clawed her way out of the sand which had settled around her waist and shot for the surface. If she passed out in the water, she’d just suffocate over and over again and if the currents pulled her in deeper, it would be even harder to get out.  
Kai broke the surface, gasping down lungfuls of air, her entire body shaking from stress but she pushed herself to start swimming for the rocky outcropping. 

The waves buffeted over her as she got closer to the rocks, battering her bruised body against it but she managed to reach it and crawl up onto semi dry land. 

She shielded her eyes and looked up to see the Helicarrier in the sky but it didn’t seem to be falling anymore. 

Although something silver and round was coming right for her. 

Kai managed to dive back into the water just as something huge and made of metal plowed into the peninsula where she’d been. Metal and glass rained into the water around her, cutting her up as she made her way farther down the peninsula. 

Something big had carved up the ground in front of her and she stumbled onto the shore to see a familiar blond head laying on the ground, his hammer sticking out of the ground across the field of flowers. 

“Thor,” Kai grunted, shaking him. “Please gods don’t be dead.” Thor grunted and Kai sighed in relief before she passed out next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


	5. That Big Ugly Building In New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: panic attacks, descriptions of torture, blood and gore

“Kai?” Someone was shaking her. 

“Five more minutes Arin,” Kai muttered, waving him off. 

“Kai, we need to go. Loki escaped with his scepter.” 

Loki? Who the hell was-. Kai’s eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp when her eyes landed on Thor’s long hair, shining like a halo in the sunshine around them. “Oh my god, the others.” 

“The Helicarrier flew off,” Thor pointed off in the direction it had gone, a trail of smoke still lingered high in the air, “I only just woke up as well. We have to find them.” 

Kai rubbed her still sore head and concentrated. _Steve?_

_Kai! Thank god!_ Steve replied a second later, his voice faint. _Where are you?_

 _Loki escaped._

_We know. He’s at Stark Tower, we’re going to stop him. Do you know where Thor is?_

_I’m bringing him._

Kai turned to Thor, “Loki’s at Stark Tower. The others are going there now to stop him.” 

Thor nodded and helped pull Kai to her feet. “To battle then.” His hammer flew into his waiting hand. 

Kai spread her newly healed wings. “To battle.” 

She and Thor shot into the air, following the trail of smoke from the helicarrier and veered off towards New York. 

Kai sped up, flying past Thor, smiling back at him and he flew even faster, gaining on her. Kai pushed herself to fly faster but eventually, they were neck and neck as they swooped towards New York City. 

As they got closer, Kai could see a blue portal opening up in the sky and small black dots flying down through it. 

“You try and stop the army!” Thor shouted over the wind, “I’ll take care of my brother!” 

“Thor!” Kai flew closer so he could hear her over the wind. “I think your brother might be under some type of mind control! I don’t think his actions are entirely his own.” 

Thor turned to her with a hopeful look, “I will try to break through!” 

Kai saluted him and swooped upwards towards the incoming army, Iron Man already battling through them. 

Kai waved to Tony as she flew past him, creating two huge whips from energy and started to cut through the army coming down at her, between the two of them it was going well. 

“I’m gonna take out the ones getting into the city!” Tony shouted and dived down lower, leaving her to bottleneck the portal. 

Kai flew around them, cutting through and dodging blasts from their weapons although some of them carved into her side and arms, slowing her down but not stopping her. She could smell her own sizzling skin as she cut through the Chitauri and their flying machines. 

The quinjet appeared but Kai didn’t stop to say hello, busy killing more of the Chitauri. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it go down and faltered in her attack, torn between saving Steve or keeping up her attack. 

A Chitauri shot carved into her back and she went tumbling from the sky, her wings having gone limp for a moment. She caught herself and swung back up into the air, turning her whip into a small dagger of fire and chucking it at the Chitauri who had hit her. It nailed it in the forehead and knocked it and it’s flying machine into two other Chitauri, blowing them up. 

Kai rolled her shoulders to push back the ache in her side and flew back up, starting her attack anew. 

A deafening roar sounded above her as a huge Leviathan swooped down through the portal. It roared at Kai and moved towards her, Chitauri jumping from its side and landing on buildings down below. 

Kai tucked her wings in and plowed downward as it snapped at the air where she’d been a second ago. 

The others had gathered down below and she swooped towards them, the Leviathan following behind her. 

Tony swooped up next to her and tossed her an earpiece which she barely caught and slipped it into her ear. “Please tell me one of you has a plan for this thing.” 

“Yeah!” Tony shouted, “Banner!” 

“What?” 

“Trust me!” 

They swooped towards the others, Banner stepped forward to face the beast as Kai and Tony shot past him. “I’m always angry!” Banner was saying.  
Kai spread her wings and stopped in the air, spinning around to see Banner morph into the Hulk and punch the Leviathan in the face. Tony turned and fired into the weak parts in its armour and it exploded above them. 

The Chitauri began to roar as they circled up, Thor landing next to them, realizing that they were the center of the battle. “How did it go with your brother?” Kai asked him. 

“Not well,” was Thor’s only reply as the Chitauri converged towards them. 

“Call it Cap.” 

Captain America stepped forward, “Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash.” Stark grabbed Barton and flew off. “Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up.” Thor nodded and flew off, “Natasha and I will stay down here, keep the fighting focused on us. Kai, you’re the only one of us who can go toe to toe with Loki, find him and put a stop to him.” 

Kai grinned at him, “you always give me the best jobs.” She winked at him and shot up into the air, reaching out with her mind to try and find Loki. 

A headache split her skull and she almost fell from the sky at the amount of information that hit her. Her mind was overwhelmed with screaming New Yorkers and the alien hive mind of the Chitauri which were all interconnected to a mainframe out in space. She could feel their pain, their bloodthirst. Her splitting headache grew worse and she pulled her powers back into herself. She would have to do something else, she couldn’t break into the minds of the Chitauri and turn them against each other without getting overwhelmed. Maybe there was a way to destroy the mainframe out in space? Could she survive in space? 

A blast of blue shot by her and Kai spun around to face it. Looks like she hadn’t needed to bother looking for Loki, he’d found her. 

Blue beams of energy shot around her, herding her around a tight corner and she twisted, letting her energy whips furl out as the Chitauri banked around the corner and she struck at them, cutting through them. 

Loki leapt from his destroyed chariot and plowed into her, knocking them both through a glass window and into a wide office. 

Kai stumbled to her feet just as Loki jumped to his, driving a silver knife into her side. Kai grunted in pain, slashing at him with one of her chakrams. “Stop this madness!” She shouted, “Loki! This isn’t you!” 

Loki laughed maniacally, “you know nothing about me!” He lunged for her with two knives and Kai backed away from him, staying out of his close range. 

“I know that you’re being controlled!” Kai argued, “I can help you!”

For one minute, Loki faltered, his eyes flickering between blue and green and Kai reached out for him, “let me help y-,” her words cut off in a gasp of pain as Loki drove his dagger into the side of her neck. 

Loki kicked her to the floor and stepped on her chest, cracking several ribs as she tried to claw the blade slick with blood from her neck. “No one can help me now.” He turned and left her there, gasping for air and choking on her own blood. 

Kai’s vision was beginning to turn red as she struggled to get a grip on the slick blade, eventually managing to pull it from her neck with a loud _squelch._ Pain made her double over as her body shook from the shock. 

Her skin knit back together slowly as Kai reached up and pressed a hand to her neck to stop the bleeding. 

A shadow blotted out the fractured light reflecting off the broken glass and Kai raised her head as best as she could to see a Leviathan's mouth reaching out for her. 

Kai stumbled backwards, gathering up her powers and shadow travelling out of the building. Her body throbbed with pain and she stumbled from the shadow world too early, missing the roof she was aiming for and free falling for the ground far below. 

Kai spread her wings just in time to pull off a steep landing and rolled across the pavement, coming to a stop behind a car. 

Someone landed heavily on a car next to her and Kai flinched, firing a blast of concentrated golden energy which bounded off a red white and blue shield. “Steve,” she tried to say but the words failed in her throat, blood still clogging her throat as her body sluggishly tried to heal itself.  
Kai had let herself grow weak. She had once fought for months without stopping, without her magic failing her. She could go days without food or water. 

But now...now she was struggling to keep fighting after only a few hours of battle. After this, she’d work harder, train harder, be better.  
Even if she could find a way home, being this weak was useless to her people. She would not be able to lead immortal armies with this amount of stamina. 

“Kai!” Steve jumped down from the car, landing next to her and pressing a hand to her neck. “God, no.” 

Kai forced herself to smile although it made her neck throb with pain. _Don’t worry. I can’t die, remember?_

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just don’t like seeing you like this,” Steve swallowed, “does it hurt?” 

Kai shook her head, even though it felt like Loki was driving his knife into her neck all over again to do so. She smiled up at him. _Not at all._

_You’re a terrible liar._ Steve smirked. 

Chitauri landed near them and shrieked loudly. Kai let out a sigh through her nose, causing more blood to dot Steve’s hand. 

“Don’t even think about it,” Steve started but Kai pushed herself to her feet, putting her chakram back together to form one long circular blade. 

Kai grinned at Steve and threw her chakram like a frisbee. It cut through the air, slicing off heads with its vibranium blade before she held out a hand and called it back to her with her magic. 

Steve guarded Kai and pushed back the Chitauri while Kai tried to talk her body into healing faster. Thor joined him a moment later and they cut through the Chitauri on the bridge, Kai relaxed just a little now that Thor was here and Steve would have backup. 

Her vision was still going in and out but she heard Steve grunting in pain and collapsing to the ground. Kai let out a gurgling sound that was meant to be a scream. The small amount of her magic that had been replenished blew out of her in an explosion of gold and black energy, killing the remaining Chitauri on the bridge. 

Kai crawled over to Steve but he waved her off, clutching his side. “I’m fine.” 

Thor turned to face them. “You couldn’t have done that earlier?” Thor waved around at the empty bridge, grinning at Kai. He reached down and helped Steve up, “ready for another round?” 

Steve smirked, “what? Getting sleepy?” 

“I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!” Natasha’s voice came over the earpiece that Kai had forgotten she was wearing. 

“Do it!” Steve shouted. 

“No! Wait! I got a nuke coming in, it’s gonna blow in less than a minute,” Iron Man swooped past them, chasing after a smaller flying missile. “And I know just where to put it.” He grasped the missile and redirected it, soaring upwards. 

Kai spread her wings, “I’m not letting him go in there alone.” She managed to get out. She prepared to take off but several Chitauri and their chariots landed on the bridge and began to fire at them. They fell back behind several cars and took turns covering each other to fire on the advancing force.  
Kai looked up to see Tony vanish into the wormhole. They all paused, shielded behind the cars, waiting for him to come down. Kai realized she had a death grip on Steve’s arm and quickly loosened her grasp; he might be a super soldier but she was still strong enough to shatter bone. 

After a long moment, Steve swallowed. “Close it.” Kai shot him a look but didn’t protest, they both knew it was pointless to wait for him. 

Tony Stark was dead. 

The portal sputtered out and began to close, the Chitauri around them dropping like flies as the central control center exploded. 

A small figure fell through the portal, glittering red and gold in the sunlight and Kai sighed in relief, finally letting herself relax onto the ground, the hole in her neck still healing. She let herself breath, the sound whistling strangely as air passed in and out of the hole in her neck as well as through her mouth and nose. 

“He’s not slowing down!” Kai looked up to see that Thor was right, Tony was still falling rapidly and his body was limp. Kai got to her feet and spread her tired wings, ready to leap after him but The Hulk grabbed him from the air before she or Thor could move. 

They stumbled to where The Hulk landed and Thor yanked off Iron Man’s helmet but Kai could tell that Tony wasn’t breathing. She summoned the remainder of her powers, using her energy to heal him as best as she could. 

The Tesseract would have to wait, she didn’t have enough power left to clone it now. 

His arc reactor sputtered back to life and The Hulk roared. Tony jerked awake, gasping for air, his eyes haunted, his body shaking. What exactly had he seen up there?

Kai’s power faded and she all but collapsed to the ground, leaning back against Steve.

“What happened?” Tony gasped, his eyes darting rapidly around him, panic rising up inside of him but he pushed it down with a joke. “Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

“it’s over. We won.” Steve sighed in relief, a small smile on his face but it faded as he studied the ruined city around him and the dead bodies lying in the streets and the terrified faces of hundreds of civilians. He remembered the words he had said to Nick Fury not three days ago, ‘they said we’d won. They didn’t say what we’d lost.’ 

They had won this battle but it was only just beginning. Earth now knew aliens existed and they knew that they were a threat. They knew that they weren’t alone in the universe and they knew that they could easily be wiped out by an invasion force again. 

Steve knew he wasn’t getting out of the fight that easily. He had saved the world seventy years ago and now he had done it again. How many more times would he have to sacrifice for the sake of everyone else? 

He glanced over at Kai to see her watching him, her eyes glittering with ancient knowledge. Kai had seen hundreds, if not thousands of warzones. She knew more than anyone what the cost of war was. How many times had she had to sacrifice herself for the greater good of her people? 

She was doing it right now, pouring her heart and soul into a nearly impossible task to hunt down tiny slivers of rock that would rebuild a rock that might be powerful enough to open a portal back to her world. 

“Loki is up there, he must face justice.” Kai’s gaze snapped from Steve’s at the mention of Loki and her gaze lifted to the tower high above. 

She got to her feet and put a hand on Thor’s arm. “Thor, could you get through to your brother at all?” 

Thor shook his head, “there was a second where his eyes changed color and I thought I had him but...he was lost to whatever power is controlling him.” 

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Steve said, helping Tony sit up, his arm around him and it was such a different dynamic from earlier in the day. 

“Loki is under mind control,” Kai explained, “I tried to get into his head but something else was keeping me out. It’s the same spell that Barton and Selvig were under. The scepter is controlling him too.” 

“Who else is the scepter controlling?” Clint asked as he and Natasha arrived. “Sorry we’re late, I had to climb down twenty stories worth of stairs.” 

“Kai is trying to convince us that Loki is under mind control.” 

Clint and Natasha exchanged long looks and then turned to Kai. “What proof do you have?”

“I have seen his mind,” Kai answered, not used to be questioned about things like this. Normally people trusted her. “He is under the control of his own scepter. His actions were not entirely his own.” 

“Not entirely,” Natasha pointed out, “that’s not enough.” 

Steve hesitated, “Kai, are you sure?” 

Kai nodded, “I’m sure.” Her mouth was set in a thin line and Steve had only seen that expression on her face a few times before. He trusted her, especially when it came to things like this. 

“Whoa,” Tony put up one of his hands, the other close to his side and Steve wondered if it was broken. “He’s an insane alien who attacked Earth. He doesn’t just get to pull out a ‘get out of jail free’ card.” 

“Do you know what it’s like to have someone in your head?” Kai turned to him, “controlling your every movement? Do you know what it’s like to be in your own body but be unable to control it?” Her eyes flickered to Steve who was looking at his fingers like he was seeing them for the first time and then to Natasha who met her gaze with nothing but a grim expression. “Do you know what its like to struggle to breath because your own heartbeats are foreign to you?” All of their eyes flickered down to the glowing blue light of the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. 

Natasha swallowed, “well, when you put it like that...I think we can all relate.”

The Hulk grunted, reaching up to touch his own head and Kai studied him, “I know,” she said softly and the Hulk let out another grumbling roar but this time it wasn’t a war cry. It was a cry of helplessness. 

“I was under its power for only a few minutes and I know it was impossible to resist. If Kai hadn’t gotten me out of it, I don’t know what would’ve happened.” Clint said through gritted teeth, “although I hate to admit it.” 

“You said the longer the spell was in place, the harder it will be to break,” Steve turned to Kai, “do you think you can even break the spell on Loki?”

Kai frowned, “I don’t know but I do know that we can’t just leave him to face this alone.” She turned to Thor, “we need to get to him soon. If he escapes, then I fear that I won’t ever be able to help him.” 

Military vehicles were moving for the tower and the SHIELD helicarrier had arrived. They needed to get Loki and get control of the situation before SHIELD and the military took it out of control. “We’d better get up there,” Steve cut in, “we’ll discuss this more once we have Loki in custody.” 

The Hulk grabbed Steve and Tony and leapt into the air while Thor offered his arm to Kai and carried her up to the top of the tower. 

“I guess we’ll just take the elevator,” Clint said to Nat. 

“How typical of them,” Nat said, already hot wiring a motorcycle. 

They sped through the ruined New York and walked into Stark Tower, pushing past the news reporters who were already crowding the building. Several shield trucks were pulling up and the STRIKE team was unloading. “We’re going to secure the hostile, follow us up on the next elevator.” Natasha ordered Rumlow before she climbed into the elevator with Clint. 

Loki was lying in a crevice in the floor, his nose broken across the ridge, his right leg twisted at an odd angle and his hair matted with blood from a deep wound on his head. 

“Loki,” Thor rushed towards his brother but Kai put out an arm.

“Don’t touch him,” her voice rang with the command of someone who had spent their lives ordering around frantic soldiers. 

Thor froze, his hand outstretched towards his brother’s body. 

Kai gathered up the last dregs of her magic. If she did this, she’d be down for a few days on her last reserves. She’d be unable to clone the Tesseract and SHIELD would most likely hide it away again. 

But, something about Loki drew her in, something that called to her, a tug deep in her stomach that begged her to help him. 

Kai twisted her fingers around a ball of golden light that appeared in her hand as she knelt next to Loki. Her glamour around her form flickered, her golden eyes shining through the weak magic that still concealed her true form that wouldn’t fade, even if she ran out of magic. The only way they would fade would be if she enacted the very complicated counterspell or her magic was stripped from her entirely. 

Thor shot a look at Steve wearily but Steve motioned for him to step back as Kai reached down and stopped with her fingers centimeters from Loki’s temples. Golden tendrils snaked from the tips of her fingers and touched his mind. 

Loki’s head jerked as golden light dripped through his skin and into his brain. Kai frowned, concentrating. “His shields are thick,” she said, her voice soft and quiet. “But I can feel his mind, I couldn’t before.” 

“Is he going to be okay?” Thor asked frantically. 

The others could hear the SHIELD agents arriving on the floor and Natasha and Clint went to stop them, taking the scepter with them to give it to Rumlow and the STRIKE team to take care of. 

“His body will heal,” Kai continued, “but his mind...I can’t tell.” 

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” 

“He’s been through...too much. He’s seen the cosmos in ruins. Seen visions of all that could be,” Kai’s voice had grown eerie and Steve frowned, noticing her eyes glowing a brighter shade of gold and golden markings seeped through her dark skin, painting themselves along her face and arms as she used more of her magic to plunge deeper into his mind. “The scepter’s spell weakened when the Hulk attacked him. He’s trying to unravel the spell himself…” She trailed off and jerked back, “he’s fighting me,” her eyebrows raised in shock and she leapt back with a hiss, her magic vanishing and her eyes going back to their normal brown color. She rubbed the tips of her index fingers with her thumbs. “He’s not conscious, not physically, but his mind and Seidr are working to unravel the spell. I don’t know if he is strong enough to do it.” She turned to Thor, her face grim, “the effort may kill him.” 

Rumlow came around the corner, his face twisted in rage. “Please tell me this is some huge joke?” He stopped in front of them, staring down at Loki’s unconscious form. “Romanov said he’s not being taken into custody?” 

Kai nodded to Thor and he moved to his brother’s side, finally leaning down to cradle him in his arms as she stood up and faced Rumlow head on. “His attack was not fully of his own volition. He is a victim as much as any of the citizens down there.” 

Rumlow laughed, “a victim? Do you know how many people he’s killed? How many agents died to defeat him? And you’re standing here protecting him?” 

“Trust me,” Tony spoke up, “it wasn’t my idea but Golden Girl over here insisted on it.” Kai shot Tony a long look and he put his hands up, “just calling it like it is princess.” 

“Fury will have something to say about this,” Rumlow said, “Alexander Pierce himself is on his way here to make sure Loki is put away for good.” 

Kai shot Steve a look. _Who?_

Steve shrugged, _No idea._

Kai crossed her arms, “I am not excusing Loki’s actions or trying to defend him but we can’t lock him up or prosecute him without all of the facts. Right now, I am sure he is under some type of mind control although I have never seen anything like this. I don’t understand how powerful it may have been or how exactly it affected him. To know that he’ll have to be awake and willing to let me see into his head. Until then, we can’t charge him.” 

Rumlow threw up his hands, “unbelievable.” He stormed off, “Pierce will be up here soon with Fury, I suggest you all prepare.” He picked up the case with the scepter in it and stalked into the elevator, riding it downwards. 

Natasha let out a long breath, “are we really going to bat for this guy?” She gestured to Loki’s unconscious form. “I have half a mind to let them take him.” 

“I almost left your best friend to be buried in the rubble and make my own escape,” Kai crossed her arms, “but I didn’t.” 

Natasha studied her for a long moment, “I’m not going to thank you for it. It was the right thing to do.” 

Kai snorted, “the right thing would’ve been to kill you all and take the Tesseract off your hands since you clearly have no idea how to control it but lucky for you, my moral compass is a little twisted.” 

Tony had crossed to the bar, “does anyone else want a drink?” 

“Please,” Clint made a beeline for Tony. “Just hand me an entire bottle. This meeting with Alexander Pierce isn’t going to go well.” 

“Who is Alexander Pierce?” Steve asked as the elevator dinged and a blonde man and Fury stepped out. 

“He’s me,” Pierce’s smile was wide and welcoming but something about him seemed malicious. His eyes were too bright, too quick to take them all in. Kai reached out for his mind but was unsurprised when she hit a strong mental shield. 

Pierce’s eyes moved down to where Loki was lying in Thor’s lap. He turned to Steve, putting his hands in his suit pockets. “Now, what is this I hear about letting our resident psychopath roam free?” 

Steve nodded to Kai, “As you know Kai has the ability to manipulate and read minds. While she was attacking Loki, she noticed his mind was not entirely his own. He’s under some form of mind control.” 

Alexander Pierce turned to Kai, “what kind of mind control?” 

“I don’t know,” Kai answered truthfully, “but his mind is being controlled. I am not sure to what extent.” 

“To what extent? What do you mean?” 

“There are many different types of mind control.” Kai explained, “Some can control your entire soul, some can only dictate what you say but not how you act, some can only monitor you and hurt you should you cross over a predetermined line, and some are simply there to watch and to listen. I am unable to determine which form of mind control he’s under until I have regained more of my strength and he is closer to being awake.” 

“And why should we care? He attacked our planet, we should just lock him up.”

Kai shrugged, “I don’t care what you do with him.” She said and she honestly meant it but a small part of her felt sickened at the thought of her leaving him to a punishment that might not be just. “But if someone was controlling him, if there is a bigger fish out there, if whoever sent Loki was able to put a leash on a _god_ ; then don’t you want to know who it was?” 

Pierce studied her for a long moment, his eyes darting between her and Loki and the other Avengers. “We can’t just allow him to go free.” 

“I’m not suggesting that at all.” 

“Then what would you like us to do?” 

“My brother is injured, his magic is too weak right now to fight any of us off.” Thor looked up at them, “I brought with me an artifact that can bind his magic for when I was going to transport him back to Asgard. If it would ease your mind, I can place it on him now.” 

Fury and Pierce exchanged looks, “do it,” Fury commanded. “We can move him upstate-.” 

“The tower is fully equipped to handle medical emergencies and has the technology to be able to monitor his brain activity.” Tony spoke up, “it might be better to keep him here, at least for a little while longer.” Tony pointed to the window, “especially with all the press flying around outside and crowded down on the street.” 

A helicopter was getting closer and closer to the tower and Kai waved a hand, repairing the glass and making it darken so they couldn’t see what was happening inside. She turned to Thor who was clicking two bracelets around Loki’s wrists that glowed with a dull silver light that made her eyes hurt to look at for too long. She took a step back, feeling her own magic dull around them. 

Whatever those bracelets were, she wanted to stay far away from them. 

“We’ll move him downstairs,” Fury was saying, “and then we’ll start working on repairing the city and keeping the press at bay.” He turned to Pierce, “I’ll contact the World Council.” 

“Wait, wait,” Pierce pulled him back and lowered his voice but Kai and Thor still heard them. “We need to decide what to do with the team and the Tesseract.” 

Thor got to his feet, covered in Loki’s blood. “The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, it is coming home with me and Loki once he is healed.” 

Pierce and Fury exchanged a long look. “We’ll discuss this later.” Fury spoke up, “we need to debrief the team. Romanov, take the Tesseract down from the roof and bring Selvig to the medical center that’s been set up down the block. Barton, coordinate with Red Cross and the military to help move survivors to the medical center.” They both moved to do what Fury had ordered. “The rest of you will not leave this tower.” His eyes darted to the many news helicopters circling the area. “I think we’d all rather deal with an army from space than that,” he pointed to one of the news helicopters. “Thor, Kai, you both are to escort Loki down to Tony’s medical center and one of you must be by his side at all times or we’ll immediately renegotiate the _temporary_ deal we’ve agreed upon.” 

Kai and Thor nodded and before Thor could pick up Loki, Kai levitated him with her magic, keeping him stable. “Tony, will you show us the way?”

“JARVIS!” Tony called out, “guide Golden Girl and Point Break to the lab with Reindeer Games.” 

“If you’ll please move to the elevator,” a robot voice from the ceiling said and they all jumped. 

Kai turned to Steve, _will you be okay for a little while?_

Steve smiled at her but it didn’t reach his eyes. _I was made for stuff like this._

_I was too but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it._ She replied as she climbed into the elevator. They didn’t break eye contact until the elevator doors shut between them. 

Kai watched the elevator numbers click downwards, moving them into a heavily fortified basement that she didn’t know existed. JARVIS was probably overriding the controls so no one else got onto the elevator. 

They reached the medical center and Kai looked around, realizing it was more of a lab than an actual hospital. She levitated Loki onto a stretcher in a corner, ignoring the gleaming medical supplies sitting right next to several high tech scanners. What use did Tony have for a medical center that looked more like it was made to study people rather than treat them? 

Kai didn’t dwell on it for to long. She was exhausted and only half conscious. She and Thor silently led Loki into a private room in the back before setting Loki on the bed. Kai collapsed into a chair next to him. “I’ll watch him,” she managed to say, holding back a yawn. “You’re going to need to talk to Fury and Pierce.” 

Thor didn’t seem to want to leave his brother. “Are you sure?” 

Kai forced a smile on his face, “I was the one who said we shouldn’t lock him up. I have to face those consequences.” 

Thor bowed to her, “I thank you my lady.” 

Kai dipped her head back, the manners of the court that she had grown up in did not vanish lightly. “Likewise your highness.” Thor nodded to her once more before leaving her alone with Loki. 

Kai studied Loki’s face. It was bruised and bloody from the battle but older bruises and injuries lay underneath the new cuts and the half dried blood. His lips were chapped, his eyes sunken into his head, his skin pale and she could smell the dried sweat on him. Burns poked up from underneath his armour and his hands were blistered, as if someone had stuck his hands into a pot of fire. 

Through the burns and bruises, she could see the god he might have once been. His fingers were long and slender, perfect for playing a piano or performing ancient spells just right but now they were crooked and bent as if they had been shattered several times and blisters from burns dotted his fine pale skin.

Besides his hands and his face, the rest of his body was covered by his thick armour but she knew he would most likely be covered in even more scars and open wounds. 

Who had done this to him?

She knew he couldn’t be innocent. No person could turn so twisted and dark so quickly. No person could revel in violence without having previously enjoyed it. And she recognized such madness in a person because it had once existed inside of herself. 

Eruvian was ruled by the Singers, a race of immortal angels who held the divine right to rule over all other life in the realm. Kai was a Celestial Singer, the only one of her kind, the chosen one, the doom of the Silenes. 

The Silenes were the mischievous, war mongering, dark art wielding creatures who were the demons to the Singer’s angels. They were twisted and demented and evil and destructive. They were the reason Eruvian was dying. 

Kai had been bred to kill them, to wipe them out from existence. Only then could she save her planet and her own people from crumbling to dust as the world died around them. 

It had taken Kai three hundred years to realize that what she was doing was genocide. 

It took her three hundred years to realize her true parantange. 

That she was half-Silene. 

That she had slaughtered her real mother on the orders of the queen of the Singers - the woman she had known to be her mother. 

Kai swallowed back the memories; the deranged rage that had consumed her, the terror when she realized the truth, the countless nights finding spells to lock away that piece of herself, to hide the magic that she had gotten from the Silenes. 

The destructive, chaos magic that she had managed to contain deep within her soul. 

She had lost control four times and the chaos magic had been released. 

Kai would never let it happen again. 

Kai turned back to Loki, her hands shaking, pushing down her own horrible memories, focusing back on his tortured face. 

The wounds on his own skin brought back to many memories; she knew exactly how each of his wounds had been given to him because there had been a time when she had put wounds on people just like the person who had tortured him. 

She knew which tools had been used to maim his fingers and rip out his nails. She knew how he might have screamed. She knew the fire that would’ve licked up his destroyed hands, boiling his blood that dripped from his destroyed nails because the same thing had been done to her. 

Kai swallowed back her nausea. 

Not even Steve knew about some of the things she had done and the extent of the torture she had sometimes been subjected too. 

If she could save Loki then maybe some of that guilt would lessen in her own soul. 

Natasha had spoken about a red ledger once when Kai had asked her why she had decided to work for SHIELD. Kai’s ledger had always been red, she’d been born bathed in blood. Could she ever erase it?

Kai put her head in her hands, trying to stop her overthinking, trying to focus on something else, anything else, but the thoughts running wild in her head. 

Her heart was pounding frantically and it felt like something was sitting on her chest. 

Her ears were ringing from being damaged by explosions in the battlefield and she clutched her head, trying to calm down. 

A clock ticked rhythmically on the wall and the sound grated on her eardrums, surrounding her on all sides. Loki breathed next to her, the sound rasping in his lungs. 

New York had never been this silent before. Even this deep underground, her enhanced hearing should’ve been able to pick up the sounds of the cars on the street above her. 

But now it was silent. 

Except for that damned clock. 

Kai picked up the lamp from the side table and chucked it at the wall. She hadn’t checked how much force she was using so the lamp went straight through the wall, taking the clock with it. 

She swallowed, trying to get control of her breathing but it was only getting worse. 

She couldn’t breathe. 

“Kai?” Steve’s voice echoed through the empty medical room. 

She swallowed back her panic, shoving it down and locking it up deep inside of her although the weight on her chest didn’t lessen up. If anything it got worse but she morphed her face into a neutral expression as Steve came walking into the room. 

“What happened?” He jerked his chin at the hole in the wall.

“The clock was annoying me,” Kai shrugged, leaning back in her chair, hoping she appeared unbothered. “What’s up?” 

“We’re opening the medical center in the tower up to the military and the SHIELD agents and any first responders who were injured in the attack,” Steve explained. “We’re going to keep this section roped off and Agent Romanov or Barton are going to be stationed outside. We want to keep the fact that we have Loki down here a secret for as long as possible.” 

“Have they worked out what they’re going to do?” 

Steve’s mouth set into a grim line, “Thor, Pierce and Fury are still debating.” 

Kai nodded, “alright. If there’s anyone who needs immediate medical attention, let me know. I can heal-.” 

“Don’t even think about it,” Steve said sternly, “you need to sleep.” 

Kai cocked an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “Are you trying to tell me what to do Rogers?” 

Steve smirked, lifting his chin to meet her deadly glare that would send lesser men running. “You’re barely functional as it is. Besides, you agreed to babysit the god,” he nodded to Loki’s unconscious form, “and since he’s out cold for the foreseeable future you might as well as get some rest.” 

Kai sighed, “fine.” 

“Once Thor takes over a shift with his brother, you can work on helping out until you physically drop,” Steve continued. “Until then, you might as well as sleep.” 

Kai smiled at Steve and saluted, “aye, aye, Captain.” Steve rolled his eyes and left and Kai let her smile drop from her face. 

Sleep sounded good. 

If only she could get her brain to stop running at a mile a minute. 

The battle today reminded her too much of the war that was still raging in Eruvian. 

When she had fallen through the portal, her world had been on the brink of destruction. The edges had crumbled off into space and the food had been running out. 

It had been seventy years since then and that was if time passed the same in both realities. 

This war had reminded her that she was running out of time. 

If her world had been dying seventy years ago, what did it look like now? 

She needed to find a better way to track the shards of the Eternity Stone or all would be lost. 

The Tesseract was the only hope she had and she wasn’t even sure if it was going to work. 

She needed a miracle. 

But the only god she could see was lying next to her and he didn’t seem like the type of god who would hand out miracles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


	6. No Man Should Fall Without A Struggle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Torture

The universe was beautiful, a painting carefully crafted by the hands of all that had lived and all that would. 

Each star a beacon of life to the planets that orbited them. Each nebula a burst of color that inspired artists to create and to dream of colors that only the truly devote could see painted above them. Each comet a burning reminder of the short life we all had and a reminder to live brightly and to burn out beautifully. 

Each galaxy was a reminder of the trillions of hearts that beat stardust through the veins of all living things. 

And Kai was staring down at it all, standing on a bridge made from rainbows which glowed underneath her feet and pulsed with power unlike anything she had ever felt. 

She stared up at the cosmos around her, spreading her arms wide to embrace the universe. This was what real power was.

“I remember you tossing me into an abyss.” Loki’s voice echoed around Kai and she spun around to try and find him but there was nothing but the rainbow walkway and the stars around her. 

The bridge shattered underneath her feet and she screamed as she fell.

The air was ripped from her lungs as she plunged down into nothingness, leaving the beauty above her. 

Darkness surrounded her, crushed her. Her eyes boiled in her head, her blood froze in her veins and her heart pumped the icy shards through her veins, shredding them with each pump of her frantic heart.

Her lungs crushed in on themselves and she couldn’t move. 

She couldn’t breathe. 

The walls of the Soul Eater Caverns closed in on her. She was chained down, alone, forgotten. 

She fell through the cosmos, the stars wheeling above her, in an uncontrolled descent through space. 

Just when she thought the pressure would crush her. Just when she thought she would die from being unable to breath. Just when the cold had seeped into her bones and had cracked her skin, she slammed into something rocky and hard. 

Her frozen bones shattered, her dry lungs ached to draw a startled breath and her muscles screamed as she lifted her head to study the dark world around her. 

It was nothing more than a large asteroid that was interconnected to several others through staircases that glowed blue in the darkness of space. 

Chitauri shrieked around her and crawled on asteroids floating in space, their voices drowned out by the vacuum around them. 

A grey creature with six fingers wearing a gold helmet and a dark grey cloak stepped around a corner and Kai struggled to her feet. 

“What have we here?” He hissed, his voice like a thousand knives in her mind.

Kai realized he wasn’t looking at her. She turned her aching neck to see Loki struggling to his own feet, his hair was much shorter, his clothing different and his eyes brighter.

There were tear tracks on his face and his eyes shone with something that had been missing when he had arrived on Earth. 

The Other lunged for him, putting his fingers on his right temple and Loki hissed in pain as his mind was read by the Other. 

The scene shifted and Kai found herself kneeling next to Loki chained to a wall, his skin bloody and bruised although his eyes were still bright. Although his face was neutral she could see the fury burning in his eyes. 

His eyes lifted and focused on her. “You’re not supposed to be here,” his voice was deeper and richer, lacking the crazed tone it had on Earth. His green eyes seemed to swallow her up as they stared at each other. 

The entire scene dissolved in front of Kai into shadows and she found herself floating in darkness. 

The darkness surrounded her, crushing her and Kai focused, trying not to fall back into her own terrors. 

She woke up with a gasp, the fluorescent lights burning her eyes. 

She rubbed them and then turned to Loki. 

He was still asleep, having not moved. She reached out for his mind and felt his shield still perfectly intact. 

Somehow she had slipped past his shields while they had both been asleep. 

But how? His shields were some of the strongest she had ever seen - besides her own. 

Although, seeing that memory only solidified her belief that Loki was not working alone. Someone had been controlling him. 

And if the Other had the power to twist his memories, he might not even be under mind control. The Other might have simply convinced him that fiction was fact. 

The door opened and with it, came the noise from the very busy medical center. Kai heard groaning and crying and the sound of people shouting back and forth as they tended to the first responders and military who had helped in the battle. 

Thor stepped into the room, his face grim. “SHIELD has agreed to let me take the Tesseract back to Asgard.” 

“That’s great!” Kai exclaimed even though her heart dropped. She didn’t have a lot of time left to steal it. And why did he still look so glum? “What’s wrong?” 

Thor hesitated before shutting the door, “I fear for my brother. The crimes he committed before he fell were great. Even if he is excused for the battle of New York, I worry that my father will punish him for the treason he committed a year ago.” 

“What did he do?” 

Thor frowned, “my brother learned that his heritage was not his own. He went on a rampage and it almost ended in genocide.” 

Kai winced, Thor’s sentence reminded her too much of what she had done when she had found out she had been half-Silene. 

“He chose to fall instead of facing justice,” Thor continued. 

Kai frowned, Loki’s words from her dream echoing in her mind. “Did he fall or did you throw him?” 

Thor looked up at her sharply, “why would you ask such a question?” 

“When I was sleeping, I saw some of his memories. I heard his voice,” she mimicked Loki’s voice as best as she could, “‘I remember you tossing me into an abyss.’” 

Thor frowned, “yes, he did say that to me. Although, it’s not true. He let go rather than face justice.” 

Kai turned her attention back to Loki. “If his memories were rewritten, if he has been conditioned to forget the truth and accept a fake reality as truth, then it will be even harder to prove that he is under mind control.” 

“Why?” 

Kai shook her head, “some of the best psychomenti - people who have power over minds - don’t have to stay in someone’s mind for long. All they have to do is radicalize them and then the victim will do the rest with little prompting.” 

“Loki chose Earth to attack because he wanted to get revenge on me,” Thor frowned, “if the Chitauri manipulated his want for revenge, it would’ve been easy to convince him to come here.” 

“But what could the Chitauri want with Earth? If Loki was being used by them, how did he convince them to attack Earth? Why not Asgard? If he wanted to be a king, why not attack there?” 

“Especially with the bifrost down,” Thor added, “we would’ve been defenseless. There is no reason he should’ve come here.” 

Unless...there was a reason. Kai shot a look at Loki, could he know? Did he know about the Eternity Stone? Did he want it for himself? 

“Maybe he came for the Tesseract,” Thor reasoned, “if he could use it’s powers then he could get into Asgard through gates that even Heimdal doesn’t know of.” Thor rubbed his beard, “he told me that someone had shown him the powers of the Tesseract. That someone had shown him places he could only dream of seeing.” Kai and Thor both studied Loki. “I asked him who controlled the would be King.” 

Kai shifted her gaze to Loki. “If he was trying to warn you about something, then part of the mind control might mean that whoever is on the other end of it could listen in.” 

Thor tensed, “how do we know they’re not listening to us now?” 

“We don’t.” 

Thor reached for his hammer, “what do we do?” 

“We keep him in here,” Kai continued, “we watch him. I might be able to access more of his memories now that I’ve rested. If I can find memories that prove he is under mind control, our case will be easier.” 

Thor nodded, “thank you for your time and effort to help us. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to spend some time alone with my brother.” 

Kai got up, “not at all.” 

She left him there and walked down the silent hall. Rumlow was stationed at the end of the hallway, his arms crossed as he glared at her. Kai nodded to him, “Rumlow.” He didn’t answer and Kai pushed past him into the main hospital. 

She quickly thickened her shields and pulled her powers back inward as she was slammed with a wave of pain, sickness and misery. People’s thoughts screamed at her, praying to their gods to save them. 

She hated hospitals. 

Kai carefully reached out for Steve’s string in her mind and tugged on it. A second later, he reached back, a location flashing before her eyes. 

Kai moved through the chaos towards the elevator, people jumping out of her way as she passed. Some stopped to praise her for her help in New York while others called her a monster and a freak. 

Kai climbed into the elevator, “JARVIS?” she called out, wondering if he could hear her or if this was some elaborate prank played by Tony. 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Take me to Steve Rogers…please.” 

The elevator began to move and stopped up on one of the office floors. Kai walked down the hallway which was bustling with people, all of them shouting and running back and forth. 

She reached out for Steve again and followed his mind into a room where Tony, Steve, Bruceand Natasha were sitting around a table with several other people as well. Instead of asking who they were, she reached out for their minds and slipped inside easily. 

They had started their day as Stark Industries’ PR team but now they had a new job, PR for the Avengers. 

Kai didn’t envy them, especially when she saw the various news screens on the far wall, playing the news. 

“These so called heroes have to be held responsible for the destruction done to the city. This was their fight. Where are they now?” Senator Boynton was saying. 

“What?” Another screen showed a waitress from a cafe that Steve and Kai had been to a few times. “That this is all somehow their fault? Captain America saved my life. Wherever he is, wherever any of them are, I just wanna say thank you.” 

The head of PR, Kai reached into her mind and quickly found out her name (Ruth), flipped off the TV. “As you can see, there are two main opinions circling. One: you are all heroes who saved the city. Two: you are freaks who need to be locked up.” Kai immediately liked her, she didn’t seem like someone who would sugar coat anything. “Stark Industries’ lawyers are already working on countering any lawsuits we may get,” Ruth nodded to a group of lawyers nearby, “and the Stark Relief Foundation has never been busier.” 

“We’re probably going to have to expand it,” Tony rubbed his face, “it’s not just for our employees anymore. We’re handling damage for the entire city. How can we do that?” 

“Pepper and her PA are drawing up plans for a joint task force between Stark Industries and the federal government to help with clean up and containment.” 

“Containment?” Steve asked. 

“Alien tech is now scattered across the tri-state area,” Natasha said from where she was sitting next to Tony. “That has to be our first priority. Who knows what type of virus’ those bugs were carrying.” 

“Not to mention the very dangerous weapons they all had,” Bruce added. 

Kai cleared her throat, realizing this conversation would only keep getting more and more boring. They all turned to her, as if not realizing she had been there. “I need to speak to Steve.” 

Steve got up instantly and moved out of the office with her. “What’s up?” 

“It’s about Loki,” she whispered. She jerked her head and led him into a corner and quickly put up a spell to muffle their voices just in case JARVIS was listening in. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I need your help with something and I don’t think you’re going to like it.” 

Steve sighed, “at this point, I’m not even surprised. Between you, Peggy and Bucky, there was always something.” 

Kai smirked, “well, can you blame us? If Captain America was on our side, we could get away with everything.”

“Get to the point.” He tried to look menacing but it was ruined by a small smile. 

“Whoever is controlling Loki is powerful,” she started, “and they picked Earth for a very specific reason.” 

Steve’s eyes widened, “you think they’re after-.” 

Kai put up a hand to stop him and nodded, “I do.” They couldn’t speak about the Eternity Stone here. 

“How would Loki even know about it?” 

“Exactly. Whoever is the puppet master might be from my world. This might all be some elaborate game to get to me.” 

“How much does Loki know?” 

“I don’t think he knows anything,” Kai said honestly, “I think someone used his hatred for Thor and his need to get revenge to convince him to raid Earth and keep the truth a secret.” 

“How do we know for sure?” 

“I can shatter his shields and search his memories but with him so weak...he could die.” 

Steve sighed, looking down, “and you don’t want to lose him, do you?” 

He had read her mind. “If Loki failed his mission, someone is bound to come looking for him again, right?” 

“You want to use Loki as bait?” 

“I would rather face whatever coward is hiding behind a broken god then stay in the dark.” 

“What if they’re not after the…” Steve trailed off, not finishing the words. “What if they were after the Tesseract?” 

“That’s a high possibility,” Kai reasoned, “because you and I are the only two alive who know about the...other thing. Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” she shook her head, “but the last time I was paranoid and didn’t act on it, I was locked in a cave for one hundred years suffocating over and over again.” 

Steve sighed, “so, you want me to help them convince Loki isn’t a villain?” 

“You’re Captain America, you’re opinion holds a lot of weight.” 

Steve swallowed, “it used to be. I’m not sure about now.” He looked around them, “you saw those weapons SHIELD were making. Peggy founded SHIELD to counteract terror, not create it.” 

“They won’t be able to use it to make weapons for long,” Kai insisted. Steve frowned at her and she quickly explained, “Thor is taking it off world.” She couldn’t tell Steve that she was planning on stealing it and duplicating it before Thor left. 

Although, she wasn’t sure how yet. 

Steve nodded, “okay.” He and Kai grasped each other’s hands, “let’s do this.” 

Kai grinned, “this is going to be fun.”

***

Her enthusiasm faded by the end of the week. 

Loki was still unconscious and didn’t seem like he was going to awaken at all. 

Stark Industries had paired with the government to create the Department of Damage Control and they had spent the last two weeks beginning to clean up the city.

The tower was under major repairs and was being remodeled to fit the headquarters for the Avengers on the top levels. All of Stark Industries was being shifted around to accommodate the loss of several of their top floors and Pepper had purchased the building nearby and was remodeling it into more space for the headquarters for the Department of Damage Control and the Stark Relief Program. 

The PR team and the lawyers had grown to astronomical proportions and Kai couldn’t leave the tower without being swamped with news reporters or being overwhelmed by the minds of the protesters that sometimes gathered outside the tower to protest the Avengers and the government in general.  
SHIELD was a constant thorn in her side, constantly moving in and out of Loki’s hospital room turned prison cell, and never leaving her alone to work on his mind. 

He was healing, slowly. 

It seemed he wanted to stay asleep. 

Sometimes she would accidentally slip into his mind during the night and relive horrors and tortures that seemed to stretch on for ages. His memories were murky and several had been rewritten and reformed until she could barely tell what was real and what wasn’t. 

Kai was tired of this. She needed to keep hunting down shards of the Eternity Stone or focus on growing her magic enough to clone the Tesseract but Steve had asked her to stay for a while to help sort everything out with Loki and she couldn’t refuse him. 

Her people had already waited seventy years, what was a few more weeks? She thought bitterly. 

Kai sighed, focusing on Loki who was healing quickly. Someone, probably Thor, had sponged the blood off his face and hands and had bandaged his wounds. His face wasn’t as bruised and the burn on his neck was covered in salve. He didn’t look half bad. 

His hair lay spread out on the pillow and something in Kai’s blood sang to her, wanting her to reach out and touch it, wanting to stroke his face and sing ancient lullabies to speed up his healing. 

Kai blinked out of her trance, her hand centimeters away from Loki’s skin and she pulled back quickly. What was wrong with her? 

She leaned back in the chair, shifting to try and get more comfortable. She pulled out her phone, accessing the app she had created that ran an algorithm that studied news feeds for anything unusual. 

Unfortunately, with the alien attack, everything was classified as ‘unusual’ so it had become nearly impossible to hunt for shards. 

She flipped through her phone, deleting notifications for articles about New York that had triggered her algorithm. 

She’d have to edit it to exclude anything about aliens if she wanted to keep using it to hunt shards. 

Although the algorithm wasn’t the most efficient way to hunt them in the first place. She needed something better, something more powerful, some sort of tracking device or she might never find the rest of the stones. 

An article caught her eye and she clicked on it. GIANT MAN-EATING CROCODILE TERRORIZES DAYCARE. 

A giant, child eating crocodile. 

That sounded like Kai’s kind of disaster. She studied the article, the crocodile was bulletproof and almost thirty feet long. It had red glowing eyes and had an appetite for humans. That sounded like a poor animal who had accidently swallowed a shard of the Eternity Stone.

“JARVIS,” Kai called out, “if anyone asks, I’ll be in Reeves, Louisiana.” She dissolved into shadows before JARVIS could answer her.

The Louisiana Bayou was undulating with heat waves; cicadas screamed in the trees and gnats and mosquitos buzzed around her head.  
Kai was sweating immediately but reached into her pocket dimension and shifted through her clothes and used her magic to change into a short sleeved shirt and cut off jean shorts with high boots for wading through the thick marshes. 

She studied the growing laundry pile on the floor of her portable closet. She’d really have to clean it out sometime this week. 

The humidity caused her already thick and curly hair to only frizz up more and she tied the thick black strands back in a braid as she waded through the marshes and up to the two lane tar road that snaked through the swamp like a lazy river. 

A 24/7 gas station sign was buzzing in the early afternoon light and Kai’s enhanced hearing picked it up with annoying accuracy. She gritted her teeth and focused on the breathing of the two employees inside, drowning out the buzzing with the comforting background noise of their inner thoughts. 

Kai stepped into the gas station, a bell ringing out her arrival. “Welcome to 7/11,” the woman behind the counter said in a bored voice.

Kai walked over to the candy aisle not far from the register and quickly flipped through the employees' minds, looking for anything about crocodiles. 

It didn’t take long to learn where the nearest dock was and which areas of the bayou had been roped off by law enforcement because of the amount of deaths. 

Kai grabbed a random packet of chocolate and crossed to the register, adopting the Louisiana accent that permeated the woman’s voice and her thoughts as well. “Seen the news lately?” 

The woman laughed as she rang her up, “how could I not? They’ve roped off South Lyles St. the way to Annie Reeves Rd. because of that monster. The sheriff is taking out a hunting party now. That’ll be 1.75$.” 

Kai passed over some pieces of paper she had glamoured into dollar bills. “Keep the change,” she drawled. “Have they had any luck?”

The cashier shrugged, “who knows. They left this morning,” she nodded to some of the cars parked in the back lot. “Haven’t seen them return.” 

Kai picked the candy off the counter, smiled in thanks and left. She dropped the bag from her hand and it sank through the concrete and into her pocket dimension. 

Kai focused and let out a deep breath, casting out her mind in a five mile radius. 

The town was farther down and she stayed clear of it, reaching out for the bayou and the hunting party looking for the crocodile. 

Her powers didn’t work on animals but she was confident she’d be able to find the crocodile before the hunting party did. 

They were following a trail of bodies down the bayou in speedboats and Kai launched herself into the air, glamouring the minds of anyone who looked at her to see a grey and white crane. 

Kai flew past the hunting party which had stopped for a late lunch and kept going down the river. 

An old rickety dinghy was up on its side on the edge of the river and Kai landed next to it, easily heaving it upright and climbing inside. She beat her wings and used the thrust to launch the boat downstream. The crocodile was mostly underwater and from the heat haze that lay over everything, it would be easier to see down here. 

And this way she didn’t have to spend a ton of her magic on glamouring herself. She had spent the last week building a reservoir of power that she could use to clone the Tesseract before Thor took it back to Asgard.

Each log looked like a crocodile so it was slow going through the bayou. Kai figured she was getting closer by the smell. 

It seemed human didn’t agree with the crocodile’s stomach very well.

Kai’s plan was to wrap her whips around the jaws to keep them from opening and then kill it. She didn’t want to make it suffer, it was just some poor animal who had eaten a shard. 

She just had to find it first.

The water rippled around the boat and Kai froze, her eyes scanning the water for any sign of scales. 

A huge maw came out of the water and snapped the back of her boat off. “WHOA!” Kai launched herself into the air, casting out her mind to make sure the hunting party wasn’t close by. Luckily, they were still cleaning up their lunch. 

Kai created energy whips from the sunlight around her and began to try and wrap one around the snapping jaws. The scaley tail flew up behind her and smacked her around but she managed to stay out of the filthy water. Although, the crocodile was splashing enough of it around that she was still getting soaked as it kept trying to jump up and bite her legs off. 

Kai managed to wrap her golden whips around the snout. She landed on the bank and hauled all thirty feet of thrashing crocodile onto a semi-solid part of the bayou.

Kai’s phone buzzed in her pocket and Kai checked it with one hand while she held down the struggling head of the crocodile with one hand and one foot on its legs to keep it from clawing her. 

The caller ID said it was Steve. He had gotten a phone only two days ago and she prayed it wasn’t another butt dial. “Hello?” Kai shouted over the grumbling hiss of the crocodile, she barely got the word out before she almost bit off her own tongue as the crocodile gave a sharp jerk. 

“Loki’s starting to wake up,” Steve started. Kai cursed, she didn’t have time to deal with Loki right now. “What’s that noise?” 

“I’m crocodile wrestling!” Kai said through gritted teeth as the tail snuck up and hit her in the side. “I’ll be home soon!” She hung up the phone and shot into the air to avoid the tail again. 

She reached a hand into her pocket dimension and pulled out a long sword which she drove into the crocodiles head. 

It stopped twitching a second later and Kai slashed her whip down its body, cutting it open from head to tail. The innards spilled out and the smell was horrendous and Kai pulled her shirt over her nose, gagging on the smell. There were times in her life that she hated that her senses were enhanced and this was one of those times. 

Kai studied the body, praying the Eternity Stone shard was somewhere she could see and she wouldn’t have to dig through its intestines to find it. From the contents of its stomach, the crocodile had just eaten another unfortunate human victim. 

The shard glowed faintly in the mess and Kai reached down and pulled it out and placed it in the back pocket of her shorts. The sound of speed boats reached her ears and she stepped into the shadows of the tree, dissolving into one of them. 

Kai arrived back at the newly named Avengers Tower and landed in the kitchen where she rushed to wash her hands. 

Steve and Clint were both eating at the kitchen island and Steve gagged as she appeared, “crocodile hunting?” He covered his nose, “do I even want to know?” 

_It had a shard._ Kai answered him mentally. “He was looking at me funny.” She answered out loud for Clint’s benefit. 

Clint nodded like he understood. Kai realized he had different hearing aids in, “hey, did Stark make those for you?”

“Yeah, he said my last ones weren’t working well enough because I kept missing conversations,” Clint shrugged before digging into his bowl of cereal. With orange soda.

“Clint you’re gonna die young,” Kai grabbed a cup of tea from the kettle on the stove.

“That’s the plan,” he replied, mouth full.

“Where is everyone else?” Kai turned to Steve, steeping her tea with one hand while she whipped mud off her face with a paper towel. 

“Tony and Pepper at some sort of charity gala, Natasha is on a mission and Bruce is down in the lab,” JARVIS rattled off in response. “Thor has arrived and is down with Loki although he is not yet awake.”

I still can’t get over the fact that he’s always listening. Steve said into my head. The future is terrifying. Kai snorted into her tea.

“I thought you said Loki was awake?”

“I said he was waking up,” Steve responded. “He spoke in his sleep last night.” 

“What did he say?” 

Steve shrugged, “Thor wouldn’t tell us but from the screaming, it couldn't have been anything but a nightmare.” 

If it was anything like the nightmares Kai kept seeing, she wasn’t surprised. “Well, good to know he’s not brain dead.” She tried to joke. 

“Director Fury has arrived,” JARVIS relayed and the elevator dinged and Nick Fury stepped out. 

“Captain Rogers! Agent Barton!” Fury greeted, “Kai!” 

Kai nodded to him, “Director. I’d shake your hand but I’m a little covered in...mud.” 

Fury held up his hands, “I understand. You smell like a New York City sewer during summer. What happened to you?” 

Kai didn’t answer. “What are you doing here?” 

“Listen, Kai.” Fury pulled out a bar stool and took a seat next to Clint, he studied his meal with a glance and shook his head before turning to Kai. “I’ve been holding off the World Security Council for as long as I can but they just aren’t willing to wait anymore. We need some sort of concrete evidence.”

“They aren’t just willing to take my word for it?” Kai sighed. 

“Unfortunately, they don’t trust you.” 

“If the World Security Council trusted everyone, the world wouldn’t be very secure,” Kai dropped her tea bag into the trash can and took a long, scalding sip. “If I can get concrete evidence from Loki, what do you think they would do?”

Fury shook his head, “as of yesterday, the plan was to send him back to Asgard with Thor but since he hadn’t awakened yet, Thor went alone with the Tesseract to talk to his father.” 

Kai’s heart dropped, “Thor already took the Tesseract back?”

“Yes, that alone was a big enough argument with the World Council,” Fury ran a hand over his bald head, being more candid than usual. “And the Senator and the government at large want some sort of justice to be faced for Loki and since the King of Asgard has banished Loki from Asgard for his crimes, it seems Loki is going to be locked up somewhere that the light doesn’t shine.” 

Kai kept her annoyance well in check. How come no one told her that Thor was taking the Tesseract back? Had Steve suspected what she had planned and had streamlined the process? She knew he had problems with the Tesseract being used as a weapon but she had been planning to use it as a tracking device, nothing more. 

Although, she still wasn’t sure if it would even work. 

She had been trying to help Loki out of the small shred of goodness in her heart but now it seemed like a pointless battle to get into. If she kept backing the villain, she would never be able to petition to get the Tesseract. 

But now she had to stay on Thor’s good side or else she might never find a way to get to Asgard and steal it from right under Odin’s nose.  
How was she going to get to Asgard? Could she shadow travel there? Or would she end up floating in the cold dead of space when her magic wore out? 

Natasha walked into the room, her face set in a grim line. “Loki is awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and comments are always appreciated! 
> 
> Wanna contact me?  
> Ariadnesmaze1@gmail.com


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